When There's Nothing to Blame, There's Always Games
By Dr. Eleanor Vance | Published on January 01, 0001
Last October, Stefan Martin-Urban shot up a suburban cul-de-sac, killing two people and then himself. Investigators found no drugs, no journals explaining his motives. But they did find video games, and so that’s the answer. 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 [[link]] strongly implied.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); “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 [[link]] 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
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