Police got a search warrant for Gilliam's home in the Bronx based off tracing info gathered by Microsoft and Gilliam's ISP. Seems he snatched an Xbox 360 - see? It's not so hard to specify the console in question - around Nov. 11, then hooked it up to play an online game (unspecified, but we'll forgive 'em). Evidently the console was reported stolen, and when law enforcement went back to Microsoft to ask if that machine had connected since the burglary, lo and behold it had. I'm assuming the monthlong intermission was to make sure everything followed search warrant and subpoena procedure.

When police cuffed Gilliam, they found loot from "about 200 car larcenies and a couple of burglaries," reports LoHud.com Consoles, mobile phones, GPS devices and other electronics were found in the trove. "We recovered so much, I just didn't know where to start," Pelham police Detective Rick Deer told LoHud.

Gilliam has the proverbial longer-than-one's-arm rap sheet. He was out on parole at the time of his arrest. He's looking at felony grand larceny charges.

Police Follow Xbox Trail to Suspect, Find Loot from 200 Thefts [LoHud.com via Hot Blooded Gaming]

The Boston Herald reports that Angela Mejia, 49, woke up in the middle of the night to find her 14-year-old son awake and gaming, playing Grand Theft Auto (naturally, the version was not specified.) She unplugged the PlayStation (naturally, the version was not specified) and then called the cops, who finally persuaded the kid to stop killing hookers and go to bed.

Of Grand Theft Auto, Mejia insists she "would never buy that kind of video." Noooooo. "I called (police) because if you don't respect your mother, what are you going to do in your life?" I dunno, lady. Have you talked to your doctor about safe, effective, fast-acting kick his ass? Mrs. Good used that. When I was exactly that age, too.

The Herald notes that she broke down in tears during her interview and then goes into the obligatory discussion of game addiction. I invite you to read the whole story. It, the headline and the presentation are credulous to the point of self-parody. Bottom line: Maybe the kid needs help. The mother does for sure.

The 911 on Video Game Obsession [Boston Herald, thanks Enigma Nemesis]

Four cops in a Detroit suburb overpowered a 43-year-old man who tried to return an Xbox without a receipt and, once rebuffed, got so PO'd he threatened to kill someone.

These days, "I'm gonna kill someone," are the magic words for a bigtime police response. When the dissatisfied customer left - to get something from his vehicle he said - police answered a 911 call and did something called "active shooter response," which means getting people the f—- out of the way and putting the perp up on the f—-ing wall. Which they did. After cuffing the guy, they only found a stun gun on him, whose possession is illegal in Michigan (at least, under these circumstances it was).

Dude faces a felony for the stun gun, plus a discon misdemeanor for, I guess, raising the ruckus and requiring cops to slam him over a counter.
Armed Cops Subdue Angry Shopper Denied Refund at Oakland Mall [Detroit Free Press, thanks Paul W.]

All of them, whose names aren't being published because they were working undercover, got nastygrams and retraining. Nobody lost their job, which probably is fair. It was embarrassing as hell to the Polk County (Fla.) Drug Task Force but, despite the pleading of the kingpin's lawyer-mans, their conduct did not invalidate the search.

Caught in the blast: six detectives, a deputy, and four sergeants. The detectives got "a letter of retraining" (i.e.: Don't do that again, dammit) and "two hours of retraining." The supervising sergeants got a "letter of guidance" (i.e. Please, dammit, don't do that again) and "four hours of retraining." Retraining? Like what, how to put better spin on the Wiimote?

The Lakeland Ledger has the full story at the link.

Polk Officers Disciplined in Wii Bowling Incident [Lakeland, Fla. Ledger]

As you can imagine, Michael Difalco's lawyer-mans is probably looking for a way to invalidate the search on account of the game-playing. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd scoffed at that, but he's not too happy about the game playing.

That is not appropriate conduct at a search warrant. But I am less pleased with the supervision that didn't walk in and say, turn that off. That's what supervision should have done.

Instead, a sheriff's detective assigned to catalog the goods repeatedly bowled frames - and when she nailed strikes on two in a row, she raised her arms triumphantly, jumping and kicking.

Chiefs of police in three other jurisdictions forming the task force that performed the raid likewise bemoaned the bad publicity. But it could get much worse than that.

A Tampa-area defense attorney, not the one representing the alleged dealer, offers this argument for chucking out the cops' search.

The real question here is have they seized property that wasn't described in the search warrant? Clearly if they're using it, they've seized it and for totally improper purposes, because it's for entertainment. Investigations are not for entertainment.

Tampa's WFLA-TV has the raw video. I haven't viewed it all yet, but someone please tell me that they took time to make some Miis.

Polk Undercover Drug Investigators Play Wii During Raid [Tampa Bay Online, thanks Jon A.]

That's the line pressed by law enforcement in Grand Junction, Colo., where Martin-Urban's killing spree took place. Although the specific games with which this young man was supposedly obsessed are not named, Grand Theft Auto - probably because of its cop-killing history - is strongly implied.

"It could be that he was simply acting out a part in a video game. Maybe he had interjected himself into a game in his mind," Grand Junction police Sgt. Tony Clayton said. It's the first quote used in a story published by the Denver Post.

Look, we have an editorial agenda here at Kotaku, and it's video games, and you as readers and commenters are also forceful video game advocates. We both have seen enough of this that I wonder if our eye-rolling is every bit as tendentious as a cop using armchair psychology to explain a senseless murder.

But at some point, I think mainstream reporters and writers have got to ask the extra question of the police, and that is simply, "Do you have real evidence that this person was deliberately impersonating video game killings, or is that just a guess?" We get to this point because random murders scare the shit out of the public, and police feel compelled to find some larger reason so that people can, I dunno, take proactive steps to protect themselves. But blaming video games, I think, sows more panic, because they're widespread, they're legal for sale, and they're not going away any time soon.

Rather than just descend into flamebait over the usual violent-video-game nonsense, I'd like to move this to maybe a more productive argument. And that is to ask the mainstream media to stop swallowing unsubstantiated b.s. whole. Nancy Lofholm's article (and I know her, and like her a lot, and she's forgotten more about reporting than I've ever learned, so this is sort of weird) is a very good narrative without the video game angle, which she didn't invent from whole cloth, she just took it at face value. But cops pull things out of their asses all the time - look at the "street value" of a major drug bust. Blaming video games has gone so far beyond cliché that it really needs to start facing the strong skepticism for which reporters are known.

The problem is that some things, some really frightening things, are just unknowable and unpreventable, and the police's only job in that case is to respond to the scene, restore order, and write it up. But a police officer saying that straight up is a lot more unacceptable to the public than if he pins it on something intangible out in pop culture. Which should say something about who's really to blame here.

Video Games Maybe to Blame in Senseless Shootings [Denver Post]

No, really, that is a wanted poster and that is a Mii on it, and that made me laugh so hard I sprained my epiglottis. The Kanagawa kops (Japan) are searching for the Mii, or a someone who looks like it, anyway. The blogs that have posted about this are inconclusive as to whether that is the actual Mii of the actual suspect (to say nothing of how they might have gotten it) or if the cops used the Mii creator to build their composite. Oh my God, I hope it is the latter. Would that really fly in Japanese court?

Jesus, that is still funny the 529th time. The WTF look is priceless.

And now, having teed this up, I hand it off to you, the commenterariat, to make it one thousand percent more hilarious than I ever could.

Have You Seen This Mii? It's Wanted for Car Theft [GoNintendo]
Police Use Mii [DannyChoo]
神奈川警察、似顔絵ツール「mii」を使って指名手配写真を公開？ [Zaeega]

Working off a Google translation of this news story, it appears the po-po in the Land o' Legos rolled up with machine guns and personnel carriers to storm an apartment where neighbors said they'd heard repeated gunfire. You know how this one will turn out.

Said den koppen den hårgen flärgen flürden flørgen koppen:

"We did what we call a 'box'. That is, we isolated the property, ensuring possible escape routes and posts armed policemen relevant sites, so we have quite a grip on the property before we enter. But the two men came out nicely, as we called them in megaphones."

The law searched their apartment and presto, found a PlayStation (assuming 3) and a flat screen TV, but no firearms. One assumes no arrests were made. No word on what game caused the ruckus.

From the police quote, it sounds like they go lights-and-sirens to a lot of false alarms up there — it may have something to do with a television show everyone's watching or something. But Officer John Hansen makes no apologies for it, says you gotta take em all serious:

After the many episodes shot last year, listening all the people after shots, and we have quite a job to sort through the many calls, many of which turn out to be fireworks, or otherwise. But we do not neglect reports of shots and moves out when it is rung after us, and tonight's action illustrates quite well

My favorite part — the lead paragraph by the Danish site writing this up: "Yes it is usually a story we would probably smile about, and think 'those crazy Brits, Americans or other nationalities.'" Yeah, Hägar, stereotypes ain't fun when the tables are turned, are they. Now you think about that in between bites of butter cookies and canned ham.

Action Called for the PlayStation Shooting [Playstadium translated with Google, thanks Henrik]

Orange County deputies seized Kenyatta Hillman's Xbox and 8 games after stopping him for speeding and allegedly smelling marijuana in his car. Although a serial number check did not reveal the Xbox as being stolen, a deputy took the console anyway, telling Hillman that he wanted to make sure that nobody stole it(!)

When Hillman tried to claim his console back, the sheriff's office were unable to locate either the Xbox or the games. A spokesman later confirmed that the console would be returned 'On Friday'.

After they finish Left 4 Dead, presumably.

Deputy Takes Man's xBox During Traffic Stop [WF TV 9]

As for motive, Savino told troopers this was his own video game adventure. "I don't know whether he was trying to act out a scene in a video game or what he was trying to do, but he said it always worked for him in video games," Roden said.

OK, gang, so what exactly was he trying to emulate? And since this dumbass seems hellbent on removing himself from the gene pool, what's the next thing he should try?

High-Speed Chase and Crash Caught on Tape [KSL-TV]