Ex-soldier puts his girlfriends 8 year old kid into coma for accidently deleting his GTA save file.

[squid5580]

If he is an ex-soldier, couldn't be be suffering psychological trauma from past experiences and stress from his time as a soldier? The kid might have set him off by that. I can't help but feel there's more to this.

Snip

He's joking about the fact when a major news site sees this they'll have a field day blaming GTA.

Since when do they need stories like this to do something like that? I doubt you will hear a peep from Faux News about it since it involves an ex-soldier and might put some negative light on the military.

It is funny though. The article in question puts more emphasis on the fact he is an ex soldier than GTA but that is all most people see.

 

[saruman31]

Tsk tsk so many moral crusaders here.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I blame the videogame, not the traumatic and life altering events that can come with being a soldier.

Did you bother to read the article? It stated the facts. GTA is a ultra-violent game. The kid deleted his account that lead to the attack. No where does it blame anything, just states the events as they occurred. This hypersensitivity is just as ridiculous as the other side's.

That's not a fact, that's a judgement the writer of the article placed upon GTA. One that's likely used to lure attention to it, journalists do that sort of thing. There's no direct blame, no, but it's a very clear insinuation that speaks to people's guts. There was absolutely no need to put that in the article if they just wanted to state the fact. Thing is that journalists don't often want to do that these days.

It's funny how in Journalism school we were taught to never ever do stuff like that, and if we did in articles we had to write we pretty much got an auto-fail, yet it's rampant in the actual world of journalism. Almost makes me wonder why they bother teaching us the proper way in the first place...

 

[Therumancer]

It could be a lot of differant things that set off an explosion over something relatively trivial. There simply is not a lot of information about the exact relationship between the guy and the kid to begin with. All told I don't think the video game or him being an ex-soldier are nessicarly paticularly relevent to the events.

My first thought in the case is that the kid is emotionally disturbed or something, there has been a lot of tension, and the guy acting on bad advice decided to try and beat it out of him when he messed up that "one more time". I say this simply because there have been a lot of cases like that. The guy might be a good father to his own kids, but when you deal with a kid with problems as opposed to a normal child that's an entirely differant situation.

All told though it does seem to be yet another attempt to try and sensationalize the "problem" represented by video games.

 

[shadyh8er]

As always though they had to sneak in "Grand Theft Auto, an ultra-violent video game", as if its somewhat relevant.

Yeah, like a "did we mention..." kind of thing.

 

[TilMorrow]

30 minutes to convict... I think something fishy is going on here also the girlfriend had a son? From a previous relationship I'm guessing. Oh wait I just noticed he had siblings. Where did all these kids come from?

Also ironically the captcha I just got for this post was Justice hectatie.

 

[xchurchx]

Good i hope he rots in jail

 

[mirasiel]

Wow, this is pretty sad really.

Cant help but feel some sympathy for all involved, some more than others right enough.

I'll admit that the details for this case are lacking but one of the first things I thought of was PTSD, I've only a little personal exp. with it but a good man I know still suffers problems from his time in combat which he admits himself would include(d) bouts of violent rage with no real provocation.
He gets help now but only because he was medically discharged after being badly wounded adn the civvy street docs picked up on the PTSD that the army medics either didnt catch or ignored, things are a little better now by all accounts but we still sometimes dont prepare combat troops well enough to integrate back into society.

Not knowing the way the US military handles it I dont know if this is the case for this man.


All around sad though.

 

[Lewieroo0]

Dear lord, what some people will do over such simple mistakes , Heck my cousin accidentally deleted my FF7 Crisis Core File and i never acted in that manner, good thing the American system is a lot more harsher than many other countries. If it happened in Australia, i could imagine the sentencing being much less (and i DO mean less), i hope he Rots in his cell , however, being an ex soldier might have psychologically messed him up, but even if it was true,he probably didn't get psychological support from what we've seen.

 

[beniki]

I blame the videogame, not the traumatic and life altering events that can come with being a soldier.

To be fair the guy looks kind of tubby. I'm not convinced his ten years of service were an actual combat role. It's more likely it's the build up of stress from a return to civilian life, divorce, his Mother's death, and the sudden responsibility of his partners kids.

However, I am convinced that justice has been served here. I would find their claims of innocence to be more believable if they had stuck to one story, instead of changing it when the police discovered the lies.

And blaming the other children... class act.

 

[Odbarc]

Sounds like another soldier-returning-from-war committing a heinous assault on a child.
This really has nothing to do with GTA, their studio or Xbox. It's really about a Government that taught this man to kill people, praised him for it, then settled him into a home with children.

 

[Mad1Cow]

Eurgh, I read the comments to that article after reading the article, most of them saying "IT'S A SHAME WE DON'T HAVE THE DEATH PENALTY LEGALISED!" I'm sorry Daily Mail readers, but there is no reason to kill a man. This man I think had a fit of rage that went WAY to far. I'm not supporting him, what he did was barbaric but saying he deserves the DEATH PENATLY!?! Give him a good jail sentance, psychiatric support and time to reflect on what he's done. Guilt is the biggest torture method I can think of that is still humane, this guy should be regretting this till he's old and can't walk. Seriously it's this sort of stuff that makes me glad I'm a Guardian reader ¬_¬

 

[Aphex Demon]

Did the kid erase every save file perhaps, but they only chose to mention GTA?

After all, these days it seems that simply owning GTA is enough for the media to jump on it and blame GTA for everything.

True True.
Wouldn't surprise me at all tbh.

 

[Yuno Gasai]

PTSD?

Didn't read the article but that's the impression I get from the "ex-soldier" part.

That's pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

I doubt gaming had anything to do with it, just served as the trigger.

Soldiers leaving the Army need much more support than they're getting.

 

[ilikepie59]

The content of the game is irrelevant, but it does seem to be the case that people get far too emotionally invested in games in general.
The problem is not that its violent, but that it has such a capacity to get people addicted enough to do something like this.

They're going to use this to blame violent games again, but as you say, it's really frustration of losing all that time/ effort. If he had spent like 60 hours in a world in Minecraft, the kid deleted it and there was a similar reaction, they probably wouldn't even mention that there was a game involved.

 

[squid5580]

I blame the videogame, not the traumatic and life altering events that can come with being a soldier.

Did you bother to read the article? It stated the facts. GTA is a ultra-violent game. The kid deleted his account that lead to the attack. No where does it blame anything, just states the events as they occurred. This hypersensitivity is just as ridiculous as the other side's.

That's not a fact, that's a judgement the writer of the article placed upon GTA. One that's likely used to lure attention to it, journalists do that sort of thing. There's no direct blame, no, but it's a very clear insinuation that speaks to people's guts. There was absolutely no need to put that in the article if they just wanted to state the fact. Thing is that journalists don't often want to do that these days.

It's funny how in Journalism school we were taught to never ever do stuff like that, and if we did in articles we had to write we pretty much got an auto-fail, yet it's rampant in the actual world of journalism. Almost makes me wonder why they bother teaching us the proper way in the first place...

Oh I see now. It is because of one adjective that the article is anti gaming even though there is way more emphasis on him being an ex-soldier than GTA or video games. Got it. Nope no hypersensitivity here.

 

[similar.squirrel]

The content of the game is irrelevant, but it does seem to be the case that people get far too emotionally invested in games in general.
The problem is not that its violent, but that it has such a capacity to get people addicted enough to do something like this.

They're going to use this to blame violent games again, but as you say, it's really frustration of losing all that time/ effort. If he had spent like 60 hours in a world in Minecraft, the kid deleted it and there was a similar reaction, they probably wouldn't even mention that there was a game involved.

They most likely would. It's not normal to blow your top because of something as inconsequential as a save file.
Suppose the kid had given away the ending to a film or a book; I'm pretty sure that would have gotten on the news as well.

The problem with games isn't their content, it's their capacity to get people so worked up. As much as I love them, no other entertainment medium [aside from televised sport] has such an uncanny knack for turning adults into overgrown toddlers.

 

[Chorionicstu]

You people do realize that it probably wasn't the deletion of his file that made him snap, but instead was most likely a case of PTSD from which anything could set him off. The real reason for this tragedy is the governments lack of adequate medicare for soldiers returning home.

 

[SlasherX]

Hey he's in prison for 75 years, hopefully 75 years of sodomy by large black men will make him regret his actions, or even better he will get shanked to death in the first week.