Four days after 22-year-old Elliot Rodger used a gun to kill three people and injure several others on the streets of Isla Vista, authorities arrested a UCSB student for negligently firing his handgun in his Pardall Road apartment. Kevin Tym, 21, was arrested Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. He told deputies that he was playing with his handgun — a 9 mm Glock 17 — when he accidentally fired it through his neighbor’s wall.
The bullet went through a wall that connects two apartment units, deflected off a TV stand, and lodged into an adjacent wall, narrowly missing a person in the next unit. Authorities searched Tym’s apartment and found seven firearms and 1,000 rounds of ammunition. They also found high capacity assault rifle magazines. Authorities seized the firearms — which were all legally owned — ammunition, and magazines, and arrested Tym for negligently discharging a firearm and possessing high capacity magazines, which are illegal in California unless purchased before January 1, 2000. His bail is set at $2,500.
The incident occurred the same day that more than 20,000 people packed Harder Stadium for a memorial service, where one of the victims’ fathers, Richard Martinez, spoke out against gun violence and led students and attendees in a chant — “Not One More”— that has since gone viral throughout social media. Six people were killed by Rodger, three by gunfire, three by stabbing.