Witnesses told authorities that Suarez then put the gun down on the kitchen counter and began saying, "This just didn't happen," according to court documents.

This is similar to the incident back in July, where a young boy stabbed his older brother to death for not letting him have his turn at a video game, in both situation and press reaction. Some of the headlines I have seen include:

Family: Game led to teen's murder - BostonHerald.com
Video game linked to fatal shooting in Brockton - The Patriot Ledger

Just don't be surprised if the major news outlets pick this up with accompanying inflammatory anti-video gaming headline.

Video game linked to fatal shooting of 15-year-old [Wicked Local Brockton]

Found in the suspect's bag was this katakana hack and slash game software—

And I was also fucking amazed when I read about Christian conservative attorney Jack Thompson blaming all this shooting shit on video games again, like there ain't no other possible got-damn reason on God's green earth for a motherfucker to go batshit and blow away another person. Jack Thompson's letter to the Northern Illinois University president is a laugh-riot. I'm assuming Jack Thompson isn't related to Eric "Don't Call Me Lance Bass" Thompson, but both these Thompsons sure got a family resemblance of idiotic statements.

Mr. Jackson, I enjoyed your post about NIU and about me. Unfortunately, you could fit what you know about school shootings and their causes in a sleeve of Titleist golf balls. I'm a six handicap, and would love to play you a match anywhere anytime.

More importantly, Mr. Jackson, I saw you and the Jack Thompson spoof at the Spike TV Video Game Awards Show. Very funny, really.

Here's a proposal: Why don't you debate me on this issue of whether violent video games cause real world violence. I'll do it anywhere, anytime. You name it.

I dare you.

Jack Thompson, 305-666-4366, amendmentone@comcast.net

PS: Saw you in Black Snake Moan this weekend. I thought you deserved an Oscar for your performance. Brilliant.

Although your "badass" post was not real, mine is.

Jack Thompson

Student Hunting Season [News Groper]

The New York Post, not exactly a bastion for accurate and fair reporting, decided that "sick shooter" Steven Kazmierczak's interest in Counter-Strike three to four years ago made a better headline than the fact that he was off his medication when he decided to go on a rampage in an Illinois classroom.

The man who gunned down five people and wounded 16 in an Illinois classroom rampage was a loner who preferred studying to partying and was obsessed with an ultra-violent video game, dormitory mates said yesterday.

Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, played the wildly popular game Counter-Strike while studying sociology at Northern Illinois University in 2003 and 2004.

"He played a lot of video games, especially Counter-Strike, really loud," said dorm mate Ben Woloszyn, 24.

What they failed to mention was what dorm mates likely told them next, or at least told the Northwest Herald, that just about everyone in the dorm played the game.

But both men said that if Kazmierczak seemed disconnected from the other students, it could have been because he was an older student living alongside underclassmen.

"I guess he was polite," Rice said. "He was just really quiet. I wouldn't have guessed he would do anything."

Kazmierczak often would play the video game Counter Strike, a first-person shooting game, the roommates said, but they were quick to add that the game was nothing unusual for dormitory halls.

It's also worth noting that over the nearly 1,700 articles published about the shooting the only two that mention the game are the Northwest Herald and the New York Post. That didn't stop Thompson for shooting out an email this morning crowing about getting it right. It's nice to know that he cares about what's important in this shooting, that a college student played video games at one point in his life, not that six people are dead and a country traumatized.

Our condolences go out to the families of those killed and to Kazmierczak's family.

COLLEGE KILLER CRAZY FOR VIOLENT VID GAME [New York Post]

last night jackson, tn got hit with a tornado that tore down most of the dorms and left our campus in ruins. i got out ok (glass in my hand, but that's about it) and all of my close friends are account for and doing well. unfortunately my car got totalled, and my room has been quarantined so i can't get to it. what really stinks is that my room contained well over $2,000 worth of gaming apparatus (including a pc which ran WoW, a 360 elite, multiple controllers, a psp, ps2, tv, sound system, and a couple hundred dollars worth of games). now i'm homeless (staying with friends) and bored as mess because i don't have any games to keep me company!

...when it comes down to it, it's just stuff. admittedly fun stuff which can make for a fun evening when nothing else is going on, but just stuff. i found myself giving thanks to God for my life and the lives of my friends, and as a side note, asking that my material posessions be spared.

I contacted another local GameStop location for comment this morning, but they were busy on a conference call about this very incident.

This is a GameStop I visit on occasion, so I am very interested in seeing justice done here. Police are currently looking for any information that will help them catch the robber turned killer. Hit the link below for a video that includes the suspect's description as well as details on the car he used to flee from the scene. We offer our condolences to Matthew's friends, family, and co-workers.

Man Dies During Robbery At Video Game Store [WSB Atlanta - Thanks Captain Download]
Photo Courtesy of Mike Morris of the Atlanta Journal Constitution

"He was enrolled in a Tae Kwon Do program for awhile, watched TV, and played video games like Sonic the Hedgehog."

"None of the video games were war games or had violent themes. He liked basketball and had a collection of figurines and remote controlled cars."

"...Cho's roommate never saw him play video games. He would get movies from the library and watch them on his laptop."

So it was the Tae Kwon Do, basketball and remote controlled cars that inspired Seung Hui Cho to go on a rampage! Makes as much sense as pointing the finger at video games. Jack Thompson, Dr. Phil and all the other knobheads who blamed gaming for this terrible massacre should be ashamed.
VA Tech Shooter [GamePolitics]

The two had been playing a sports video game when an argument erupted over who would play the next game, according to Lansdowne Police Chief Daniel J. Kortan Jr. "It was a dispute over the use of a video game," he said.

Not that it is amazingly important, but I'd be interested to know what they were playing. Tony Hawk? Tiger Woods? Either way, the fact that it was a sports game and not an FPS or GTA game tends to support the theory that the younger boy, still being held at a Delaware County prison, was simply one troubled individual. Many of you in the comments section of the first story were asking where the parents were, but what parent would expect their child to kill over a sports franchise?

Also there was some confusion as to how many times the older brother was stabbed, with some papers reporting twice and others only once. I believe the source of the confusion there is that the coroner's report sites the cause of death as a single stab wound to the heart. According to the original story I cited he was stabbed once in the lung and once in the heart. Only the heart wound was fatal, hence the coroner's report indicating a single stab wound.

We'll keep you informed if any more information surfaces.

Teen held in brother's slaying [The Philadelphia Inquirer via Game Politics]

"I don't believe the actual game itself was the cause of it. I don't believe they were acting out in any way or mimicking anything in a video game. I believe it was actual use of the game and whose turn it was," said Lansdowne Police Chief Daniel Kortan.

It sounds like he phrased that response specifically to ward off a potential wave of violent video game outcry, doesn't it? It's nice to see that situations like this can be resolved without immediately tossing the blame on our favorite hobby.

Thirteen year-old Jahmir Ricks was arrested at the scene, tearfully confessing to police upon their arrival. He is being charged as an adult with murder in the first degree. Something failed in this situation that had absolutely nothing to do with video games. Normal people don't go from arguing over who gets to play a video game to murderous rage in the blink of an eye.

Brother Kills Brother in Video Game Dispute [6abc.com - Thanks Dru]

Boy, 7, dies of Gameboy power shock - Metro.co.uk
KILLED BY HIS XMAS GAME BOY - Mirror.co.uk
'Gameboy shock' kills wet boy - itv News

Imagine if you were a parent and just caught any number of those headlines. Remember, don't think like an informed gamer...think like a parent. Right. No Gameboy for your kids. If not anti-game bias, this is at least irresponsible sensationalism, making it seem as if the Gameboy itself were the cause of the poor child's death, to the point where Nintendo of Europe felt they had to issue a statement.

"Nintendo wishes to offer its sincere condolences to the family of Connor O'Keefe...Details of the accident are currently unclear so we are unable to make any further comment at this stage."

Tabloid reports on child 'Killed by Game Boy'
Nintendo responds to Game Boy accident [GamesIndustry.biz]

ZOMG@! [Level 99 - Thanks ItSuxToBeU]

Thanks for writing. You may not know this, but reporters don't write headlines. We just write the story and send it in. The editors create the headlines and the front page.

Look, the lead cop said Need for Speed may have contributed to the crash. Hence the headline. But I want to send you a short opinion piece I wrote this morning. I was going to put it up on a new blog I'm starting, but we couldn't get it to work yet. So here it is for you:

No doubt, we media hacks will be tripping over ourselves today on the issue of video games and their influence on behaviour in the wake of the alleged street-racing murder of Toronto cabbie Tahir Khan. Read my story about Khan here and the video game that may have contributed to his death.

Add your voice or comments here. Some random thoughts:

The lead cop on this case, Det. Paul Lobsinger, was careful with his words. He made it clear the game
Need For Speed, found on the front seat of one of the suspect s cars, may have contributed to the crash, but it wasn t solely to blame.

Indeed, drag racing, speed-addicted yahoos, car crashes and vehicular homicide date back to when the first cars rolled off the assembly lines. (Many cops will tell you, however, that attitudes have changed and kids are more reckless and more prone to race on city streets today than yesteryear, when muscle cars stuck to the remote country roads.)

So can a street racing video game influence a player to take his or her need for speed out into the city? Can a first-person shooter turn a young player into a real-life killing machine?

A major review of the last 20 years of research on violent video games and behaviour published last August by the American Psychological Association found a definite link between such games and increased aggression. In one study of more than 600 Grade 8 and 9 students, the more kids played video games, the more likely they were to be rated by their teachers as hostile. Read a summary of the study here.

Studies like this are ammunition for parent activists against media
violence, such as Toronto s own The Free Radical and its founder, Valerie Smith. She s taken on everyone, from controversial rappers to violent games such as Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Postal 2. Check out her complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission against The Star.

Toronto is also home to one of the leading skeptics on the link between media violence and behaviour. Professor Jonathan Freedman did his own review of the research in 2000 and found no link, although many of his peers disagree. Freedman writes:

"The scientific evidence simply does not show that watching violence either produces violence in people or desensitizes them to it."

My opinion? We need to own up to the fact that we re in a brave new world of simulated violence and insanity. Twenty years ago, gamers chased ghosts, shot down spaceships and helped a little frog cross the road. Today, it s about killing cops, murdering innocent passersby (the bloodier the better), stealing cars and mowing down anyone in your way.

I recently played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The first night after playing, I dreamt I went on a violent rampage, stabbing anyone who walked close to me. So yes, the game is brutal and it imprinted on some part of my subconscious.

It didn t turn me into a killer. None of my friends who play similar games has changed for the worse. Of course, we re all educated adults, well-adjusted people who can easily distinguish between fantasy and reality.

But I do fear for children, my own 10-year-old nephew being one: I shudder when he tells me (with a smirk) that he s played Grand Theft Auto.

Like everything else these days, it falls on parents to get involved. Limit your child s exposure to violent video games, but don t be so nave as to think they re not going to play somewhere else. Instead, tell them what s wrong about the violence and images, tell them why you don t like it, tell them why it s unacceptable.

Give them a moral compass and they ll find their way safely through the filth when they inevitably trudge through it.

Battling The Toronto Sun [Kotaku]

The newspaper that asked "Did Need for Speed Kill?" drew the ire of Kotaku reader Skitzo and he updated a message board with where things have gone since the email exchange. The short story is that the Editor-in-Chief was less than sympathetic to Skitzo's complaints, but he did get the EIC to admit that the cover was done the way it was (see image for idiocy) simply to sell newspapers.

My Battle with the Toronto Sun [Assembler Games]
One Reader's Battle with the Toronto Sun