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Law enforcement officials in Minnesota yesterday said that up to four students may have been involved in planning the Red Lake massacre that left ten dead last week.
It is likely officials will find that specific violent video games, most notably Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, and Metal Gear Solid 2 were used by the conspirators a) to pump themselves up to commit the crime, and b) to train to carry it out efficiently.
In Oakland, California, homicide detectives found that a gang used Grand Theft Auto 3 to motivate and train themselves to do carjackings, robberies, and murders. Said one perpetrator: “We played the game by day and lived the game by night.”
An 11-year-old boy in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, trained on Metal Gear Solid 2 with his classmates to take over his middle school “Columbine-style.” When his conspirators backed out, as apparently happened in Red Lake last week, the student shot and killed himself in the school bathroom. A similar incident occurred later in Virginia.
Klebold and Harris used Doom to train themselves for their April 1999 Columbine massacre. In their video taped suicide note they crowed about their training on Doom.
Miami attorney Jack Thompson, the day of the Red Lake massacre, alerted Minnesota law enforcement officials and media that Weise most likely trained on video games to kill. Within two days of that prediction, it was known that Weise had done just that, as Weise’s two flash films “Target Practice” and “Clown,” which he uploaded to the Internet, are in fact crude replications of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Manhunt.
Weise apparently recruited others to his scheme with the R-rated Elephant, which is a film that glamorizes Columbine. A similar school shooting movie, The Basketball Diaries, fascinated the school killer in Paducah as well as Klebold and Harris. What is lost on the media covering Red Lake and the role of Elephant is that its “R” rating makes it improper for any 16-year-old’s viewing. The ratings are there for a purpose. Any establishment that sold or rented Elephant to Weise may be held civilly liable for its contribution to the massacre, as are the makers of the M-rated murder simulation games on which the conspirators likely trained to kill. We already know Weise did just that.
Miami attorney Jack Thompson was on CBS’s 60 Minutes on March 6 explaining the liability of the video game industry for the murder of three police officers in Alabama by a teen who obsessively played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a cop-killing game.
The first person killed by Red Lake’s Weise was a uniformed security guard. Red Lake Principal Chris Dunshee has told Thompson: “If you saw, as I have, the surveillance videotape of Weise’s killing, you would know that he was trained to kill. His spree looked like a video game, so purposeful and so calm were his actions. One law enforcement official told me ‘Look at this guy. His heart rate can’t be above 70.’” The military uses these virtual reality killing games to get soldiers to kill calmly.
The Red Lake massacre is yet one more school shooting incident spawned and enabled by violent video games. After Columbine, the FBI and Secret Service identified the link. Nobody in Minnesota was and is paying attention, especially not Governor Pawlenty, who was warned months before Red Lake that this would happen.
It is likely officials will find that specific violent video games, most notably Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, and Metal Gear Solid 2 were used by the conspirators a) to pump themselves up to commit the crime, and b) to train to carry it out efficiently.
In Oakland, California, homicide detectives found that a gang used Grand Theft Auto 3 to motivate and train themselves to do carjackings, robberies, and murders. Said one perpetrator: “We played the game by day and lived the game by night.”
An 11-year-old boy in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, trained on Metal Gear Solid 2 with his classmates to take over his middle school “Columbine-style.” When his conspirators backed out, as apparently happened in Red Lake last week, the student shot and killed himself in the school bathroom. A similar incident occurred later in Virginia.
Klebold and Harris used Doom to train themselves for their April 1999 Columbine massacre. In their video taped suicide note they crowed about their training on Doom.
Miami attorney Jack Thompson, the day of the Red Lake massacre, alerted Minnesota law enforcement officials and media that Weise most likely trained on video games to kill. Within two days of that prediction, it was known that Weise had done just that, as Weise’s two flash films “Target Practice” and “Clown,” which he uploaded to the Internet, are in fact crude replications of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Manhunt.
Weise apparently recruited others to his scheme with the R-rated Elephant, which is a film that glamorizes Columbine. A similar school shooting movie, The Basketball Diaries, fascinated the school killer in Paducah as well as Klebold and Harris. What is lost on the media covering Red Lake and the role of Elephant is that its “R” rating makes it improper for any 16-year-old’s viewing. The ratings are there for a purpose. Any establishment that sold or rented Elephant to Weise may be held civilly liable for its contribution to the massacre, as are the makers of the M-rated murder simulation games on which the conspirators likely trained to kill. We already know Weise did just that.
Miami attorney Jack Thompson was on CBS’s 60 Minutes on March 6 explaining the liability of the video game industry for the murder of three police officers in Alabama by a teen who obsessively played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a cop-killing game.
The first person killed by Red Lake’s Weise was a uniformed security guard. Red Lake Principal Chris Dunshee has told Thompson: “If you saw, as I have, the surveillance videotape of Weise’s killing, you would know that he was trained to kill. His spree looked like a video game, so purposeful and so calm were his actions. One law enforcement official told me ‘Look at this guy. His heart rate can’t be above 70.’” The military uses these virtual reality killing games to get soldiers to kill calmly.
The Red Lake massacre is yet one more school shooting incident spawned and enabled by violent video games. After Columbine, the FBI and Secret Service identified the link. Nobody in Minnesota was and is paying attention, especially not Governor Pawlenty, who was warned months before Red Lake that this would happen.