Youth imitates "GTA Style" Murder

[Nodz86]

Its people like this who muck it up for the rest of us. This person in question if found guilty will have the death penalty which is a lethal ijection.

 

Thai youth imitates Grand Theft Auto in cab murder

By Nopporn Wong-Anan Reuters - Monday, August 4 08:39 am

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai teenager has confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver after trying to imitate scenes from the controversial "Grand Theft Auto" video game, police said on Monday. The 18-year-old high school student, now in custody pending further investigations and a trial, faces death by lethal injection if found guilty of robbing and killing a 54-year-old taxi driver with a knife at the weekend.

 

Police said the youth, an obsessive player of the video game, showed no sign of mental problems during questioning and had confessed to committing the crime explicitly because of the game.

 

"He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game," chief investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak told Reuters.

 

The youth, described by his parents as polite and diligent, was arrested late on Saturday after he was found trying to steer a cab backwards out of a Bangkok street with the severely wounded driver in the back seat, newspapers reported.

 

The suspect told police he did not mean to kill the driver, whom he had chosen as a possible victim because of his age, but that he stabbed him to death when he fought back, newspapers reported.

 

"Grand Theft Auto", now available in its fourth edition, has been criticised for depicting violence including beatings, carjackings, drive-by shootings, drunk driving and prostitution.

 

A senior official at Thailand's Culture Ministry said the murder was a wake-up call for authorities to tackle the issue of violent video games, and urged parents to pay closer attention to what their children played.

 

"This time-bomb has already exploded and the situation could get worse," Ladda Thangsupachai, director of the ministry's Cultural Surveillance Centre, told Reuters. "Today it is a cab driver, but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner."

 

The ministry has been pushing for tougher regulation of video games such as Grand Theft Auto, including the imposition of a rating system on sales and restriction on hours that youngsters can play the games in public arcades.

 

A multi-million dollar lawsuit was filed in Alabama against the makers and marketers of Grand Theft Auto in 2005, claiming that months of playing the game led a teenager to kill two police officers and a 911 dispatcher.

The blockbuster Grand Theft Auto games are published by Nasdaq-listed Take-Two Interactive Software.

 

(Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Ed Cropley)

[hesonly5]

It's worrying that people who are mentally healthy (supposedly) have problems differentiating between real life and a video game.

[zo6dude]

................

[Eudemon]

Anyone who can do that is not mentally sound, this one guy out of what 9 million sold does this and suddenly it's GTA's fault. No this idiot is looking for something to justify his actions that's all, it's very easy and fairly lucrative nowadays to blame someone else for your mistake, it's the world we live in today. Plus with the recent brutal killings that's gone on it makes me think it's not a games fault that this kid did this, maybe he was a loner or spent far too much time on his console, one thing's for sure he certainly isn't right in the head.

 

Death is to good for him, he should rot and see that real life unlike the game doesn't have a reset option.

[Speedtouch]

I hate the way that us teenagers are all stereotyped into all being ravaging murderers who live off video games, and the blame is instantly shoved onto Rockstar et al (as Diablo said). Its the idiots like this guy who are too stupid to understand the difference.

 

"He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game"

Thats why he deserves to be shot. To show him that if you shoot someone in that part of the head, it does not disappear and start spurting blood.

[Guest RB26DETT]

it's stupid to associate teenage crimes directly to violent video games especially GTA. they can't take the blame because they aren't responsible for whatever happens to people.

 

how come other games like Crysis don't get BS from the media, you're killing people also on those games.

[Captain_ClutchKick]

Oh, wonderful, blame anything except the individual, yeah this game must be really bad, ban it, never mind that some people enjoy a bit of harmless fun with it, no, ban it, BAN IT!!!

 

People can be such morons, can't they?

 

Death is to good for him, he should rot and see that real life unlike the game doesn't have a reset option.

 

 

Bet he thinks it will just say: WASTED!

[Iced_Bullet]

Death is to good for him, he should rot and see that real life unlike the game doesn't have a reset option.

:thumbsup: hahah +rep This made me giggle.

 

He deserves to be injected or w/e cos he's obviously not mentally stable and in my opinion if you take someone's life, why should you be in prison for less time than robbery. In my opinion if you take someone'e life, either you should be sentenced to life long intensive labor or death itself. Get what you give is what I always say ...

[Pherelas]

Everyone has said everything that i feel about this, just can't see how people can't seperate life and games, shocks me. GTA it self says that all of it is wrong in the story as he's trying to get away from it.

 

How can he me mentally stable if he thinks its a good idea to see if you can steal a taxi easily becosue you can in a game?