Richard Martinez has been grieving his son’s murder publicly, making himself accessible to any reporter eager to hear his family’s tragic story. “I wanted Chris to be a name and a face, not a number.”
Photos courtesy of Richard Martinez
The last time Richard Martinez saw his son, Chris, was during Mother's Day weekend. Chris wanted to arm wrestle.
"A few months back, I told him I was getting back in the gym," Richard said. "Chris never felt the need to lift weights — he played basketball, football, baseball, and you know when you're young you don't have to do as much. I told him I was getting stronger, and he said, 'Let's arm wrestle!'"
Richard told Chris to give him a little time to build himself up first.
When Chris went to see his dad on Mother's Day weekend, he asked him, "Are you ready?" Richard said he still needed more time in the gym.
"And that's when he warned me that he started lifting weights too!" Richard said, laughing. "He was competitive with almost anything, even with me."
Two weeks later, 20-year-old Chris was the sixth and final victim of the shooting spree at the University of California, Santa Barbara, gunned down as he was walking into the I.V. Deli in Isla Vista.
Photo courtesy of Richard Martinez
In the month and a half since his son was killed, Richard Martinez has been grieving publicly — making himself accessible to any reporter eager to hear his family's tragic story. But at the same time, he has found it difficult to deal with the way the media chooses to tell the story of the May 23 massacre that took the lives of seven people, including the gunman, Elliot Rodger.
Last month, Richard sat down with Barbara Walters for a 20/20 special report on Rodger and the UCSB massacre. Richard said Walters interviewed him for 45 minutes; about one minute aired.
It is certainly not uncommon, especially in TV, for segments to be short. After the interview, Richard and his PR handlers were told by ABC that he only be featured for only two or three minutes during the broadcast. ABC did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this story.
"I hated it," Richard said. "The title, for one thing."
The 20/20 special, titled "The Secret Life of Elliot Rodger," aired June 27. It was promoted by ABC as the exclusive first interview with the killer's father, Peter Rodger. The hour-long broadcast featured many never-before-seen photos of Elliot Rodger; chilling clips from his YouTube videos, where Rodger wonders in front of the camera why girls won't have sex with him ("Look at me, I'm gorgeous"); and dramatic readings by a voice-over actor from his manifesto detailing his day of retribution ("I will slay every person I see," "I will be a god"). A spokesman for Peter Rodger told BuzzFeed that he had "no problem with the program."
"I've worked with a lot of mentally ill people. A lot," said Richard, who is a practicing criminal defense attorney. "Someone who is as mentally ill as Elliot Rodger is not an accurate historian about what is going on in his own life. It was a wrongheaded, sensational way to present what happened."
During the part of his interview that did air, Richard described his son as "quiet, kind, humble, graceful, funny, and at the same time the most competitive person you'd ever meet."
From there, 20/20 cut to Walters saying that Richard blames the NRA for the massacre, then to a clip of him speaking at a press conference the day after the shooting. And then Richard's airtime was up.
Richard told BuzzFeed that he doesn't resent that his public grieving process has shaped him into a spokesperson for gun control. He spent the week leading up to July 4 traveling to Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Iowa to deliver 2.5 million postcards with his rally cry for the victims of gun violence ("Not One More") to the offices of lawmakers on behalf of their constituents asking them to support stricter gun laws.
He said the reason he's agreed to every interview request, no matter how small, is his commitment to Chris.
"I wanted Chris to be a name and a face, not a number," he said. "And I realized that I have a limited amount of time. All stories have a life cycle."
from BuzzFeed - Breaking http://ift.tt/1ww8Vqt
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