The insane murderer kid

[Cloral]

I'm sure many of you have already seen this as it is clear we have many Penny Arcade readers here. But for the rest of you, I think you should take a look at this letter that was sent to Mike and Jeremy:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/02/21

It is in regards to the kid who killed a homeless man and then blamed the whole thing on violent video games. From the letter, it is absolutely clear that he was simply batshit insane. However, we all know what angle the media is going to take with this. I think it is important that this letter be circulated as much as possible so that more people can see the truth behind the incident instead of the truth the media will want you to believe.

[The_Amaster]

Oh, man, media holiday. This does not bode well. "Todays top story, a boy killed a homeless man. In later interviews, the boy claims that video games led to his actions. The question, does this isolated incident of a boy who obviously has a screw loose mean that all vido games are satanic urges from hell? A current bill trying to be passed through congress will ban video games for all eternity. In other news, the age limit for R rated movies has been dropped to 10. But who cares about that. It's obvious that violent, cussing, sex loving characters in movies and TV have absolutly no effect on people. It's all video games."

About the kid himself, it sounds like a serious case of, oh whats the disorder?, where your convinced that no-one else in the world is real. (Yeah, it's a real condition) It would explain his attitude, among other explenations.

EDIT:Oh MAN! Damn!!! I just read the CNN article. Their actually casting a bit of a sympathy twist on the kid!

"Luis says 'I'm gonna go hit him,' We're all laughing, thought he was joking around,'" but he wasn't, Moore concedes. "We just all started hitting him."
Makin it seem like the kid was just fooling around, like he didn't know what he was doing. Kid knew perfectly well, damnnit.

[vegeta1215]

Wow. That was quite a read. All I can say is that I hope that kid stays behind bars so the parents and everyone else involved can have some semblance of a normal life now.

[Aegix Drakan]

0_0

Oh...my...

...this kid is insane...seriously. And now, he's trying to scapegoat video games for this?!?

ok, seriously, if the kid is 15, and getting picked up by the cops every other day, it's OBVIOUS where the problem is! Why the hell didn't anyone see it?

once again, the authorities wait untill someone dies before they take long overdue action...and then the kid goes and tries to make an even BIGGER mess...

seriously, I hope this kid never gets out of jail, 'cause he's a danger to society, and everyone in it!

worst thing is, Old JT is gonna leap on this like a gigantic bar of candy and yell "SEE! I told you so! ban games worldwide NAO!". Just...ARGH!!!

sorry if my post is disorganized and messy, but...I'm REALLY pissed off!

If the kid is that F*ed up, then it's not the games that are the problem. His mentality is. Anyone with a good head should see that.

I hope this E-mail gets send NATIONWIDE before this gets way out of hand! and I send my condolences to anyone who was opressed by this sick twisted excuse for a human.

[Rijuhn]

The kid is a child of the devil. He is fully acting out every perverse action his mind can concieve. I really wonder if he feels "more alive" when he does such hateful things. He is enslaved by his hatred. I can only pray that he will see the error of his ways and repent. May God have mercy on such a wretched soul as him.

[King Aquamentus]

An excerpt from "Education of a Wandering Man", by Louis L'Amour:


"We hear a lot of talk these days about violence, but we forget the many generations that have grown up on stories of violence. The bloodiest of all, perhaps, were the so-called fairy tales, but I would have missed none of them and doubt if I did, yet I see little difference between Jack killing a fable giant and Wyatt Earp shooting it out with an outlaw."

[Warlock]

Very interesting read. I have to say, despite that, I still agree with Gabe's original post. But I also agree with this lady as well. I think in *many* cases the parents are to blame. Certainly there are less-than-ideal parents out there which lead to "less-than-ideal" kids.

But I also completely understand where this lady is coming from. There was something wrong with the kid. It sounds like he's clearly a sociopath based on that letter, so I can completely see how the parents couldn't do much outside of some serious mental care (they were doing counciling but clearly that wasn't working).

But the point here is that either way, video games had nothing to do with this. The kid was, for all intents and purposes, insane. The letter even further illustrates that the kid is just lying to get out of it. But like Gabe said, the media will blow it out of proportion and look for their scapegoat. They always do.

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

Holy cats, sometimes I'm surprised that they didn't blame Counter-Strike for the Oklahoma City Bombing. Stab me. Stab me in the freaking eye. Is there any way that we could send some sort of e-mail to CNN, or some news organization to try and get this letter some global publicity? Not specifically as AGN, but as individuals, we could spam up somebody's inbox with letters about this post. For once, gamers have something genuine to fight back with.

Also, it's Mike and Jerry, not Jeremy. :p

[Fortis Nova]

I pity that woman who saw all her efforts prove to be fruitless. While many cases may stem from less than ideal parents, I don't believe this is one of those situations. That kid's parents were trying their darned hardest. I agree that there probably is some pathological cause for the murderer's behavior.

As for blaming it on video games, it's obvious that is just pure and utter lunacy. I may not be able to get this letter global coverage, but I will post it on another forum I frequent.

[Cloral]

Remember too that people don't want to believe that people have the potential to be this way on their own. They want to believe that some sort of external force corrupted this kid. That means that it could never happen to them or anybody they know, provided they keep them away from video games. But at the same time, that means that people don't really make their own decisions. We are nothing more than a product of what inputs we are fed by others. And do we really want that to be true?

Also, simplistic finger pointing like this prevents us from studying the case more deeply. What really caused this kid to behave this way? This is a very important question that we should all take very seriously. If we could go back, look at all the statements this kid made and try to trace where the behavior started, we may be able to prevent this in the future. But this sort of study doesn't happen because everyone just wants lay blame somewhere. So people like JT who encourage this sort of scapegoating are helping to ensure that these sort of incidents keep happening again and again. JT, I nominate you for the biggest douche in the universe award.

[Darth Marsden]

That award belongs to John Edwards and you know it.

From the sounds of things, the parents did everything they could, so we can't blame them. And since we're all pretty much agreed that "video games don't kill people", it pretty much boils down to the kid being seriously disturbed. Hopefully that's what people will take notice off, as opposed to the JT brigade commanderring the case as their latest poster-child.
Mixing my metaphors slightly there, but whatever.