TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: Jack Thompson

  • GTA Killer appeals conviction

    Appeals court to hear Moore case:

    Devin Moore, aka the GTA Killer, is appealing his conviction in the murders of two Alabama police officers and a dispatcher. When he was arrested Moore said “Life is a video game. Everybody has to die sometime.”

    Of course, during his trial, The One Who Shall Not Be Named got involved and claimed that Moore’s violence was caused by the infamous Grand Theft Auto video game. The Nameless One went as far as to file lawsuits against the game manufacturer and the game retailer.

    The video game defense wasn’t even allowed into Moore’s trial. Moore was convicted and sentenced to death.

    Now Moore and his attorneys are appealing his conviction using the video game argument again…

    Moore, now 22, claimed the video game “Grand Theft Auto” and childhood abuse influenced his decision-making. His theory was rejected and the video game defense was disallowed during trial. He was convicted on Aug. 9, 2005, and later sentenced to death.

    Moore’s attorney, James Standridge, had said that his client suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Standridge argued that when Moore was in a Â?dissociative state” he automatically reverted to scripted behavior influenced by his repetitive video game exposure and childhood abuse.

    If the video game defense wasn’t even allowed into the trial what makes them think it will work in the appeal. If this actually works then there is no justice anymore.

    Link via Game Politics.

  • Jack Thompson takes on Bill Gates

    CounterStrikeLogo

    According to Counter-Strike Nation, the Washington Post had the following paragraph in this article but subsequently retracted it about the Virginia Tech shooter…

    Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike[sic], a hugely popular online game, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism[sic] groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns.

    Now since a video game site found this before the Post pulled it you know the evil one has seen this. Lo and behold he’s sent a letter to Bill Gates, head cheese of Microsoft who don’t even make Counter-Strike…

    April 18, 2007

    Bill Gates

    Microsoft

    1 Microsoft Way
    Redmond, WA 98052 Via Fax and e-mail

    Dear Mr. Gates:

    On Monday, April 16, at 3:10 pm, I was a guest, as I often have been in the past, on the Fox News Channel. News anchor Bill Hemmer asked me to profile the Virginia Tech rampage killer. I did so, noting that until that day the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike. I mentioned your company’s game by name. I explained that the rehearsal for such a massacre is key to being able to pull it off, as efficiently as Cho, whose name we didn’t even know at the time. Cho and Steinhaeuser were able to do what they did the first time because it was not the first time. This is why the military uses this same virtual reality simulation to train soldiers to want to kill and how to kill calmly, as the witnesses of Cho said he did.

    Sure enough, last night I was doing a west coast radio interview when the host said to me, “Mr. Thompson, you are right. The Washington Post is reporting right now the following:

    ‘Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game published by Microsoft, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns.’

    I thus went back on the Fox News Channel, and Bill Hemmer and I explained not only that I was right about your game figuring in the Virginia Tech massacre but also that the Washington Post excised the above excerpt from the story this morning. That is yet another story. The bad news for the Post however is that you can still get the excised excerpt at http://www.washingtonpost.com/…AR2007041700563_3.html?hpid=topnews. Thus, the cat is out of the bag, and his paw prints are still on the bag. Is this a great Internet, or what?

    As you know, I similalry [sic] went on NBC’s Today Show with the DC Beltway Sniper still unidentified and at-large a few years ago and told Matt Lauer and the nation that the triggerman would most likely be a teen video gamer trained on a sniper video game. The tarot card was a clue, but there were other clues. I was right, as Malvo trained on your Microsoft game, Halo. NBC reported that three months later, and it was part of the criminal trial of Malvo.

    Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill. You knew five years ago that your on-line game, Counterstrike, so clearly figured in the massacre by a student in Erfurt that the event and the game impacted the race for Chancellor in Germany at the time!

    Yet, here you are, five years after “Erfurt,” still marketing Counterstrike. having done nothing to disable the server(s) for this mass murder simulator, and it looks like “Virginia Tech” is a consequence. There’s more going on in the world than Vista. Just ask the bereaved Virginia Tech families.

    Mr. Gates, pull the plug on Counterstrike today, or do we need more dead to convince you? “Virginia Tech” was the 9-11 of school shootings, and it appears Microsoft is in the middle of it, in more ways than one.

    Regards, Jack Thompson

    Wow, he changed it up this time. He used killing simulator instead of murder simulator. But as usual Mr. Thompson is off his rocker. I’m not going to go into the thousand ways that he’s wrong. I would hope that our readers are smart enough to figure that out for themselves. I just wanted to display this to show why I consider Jack Thompson the reigning King of All Assclowns.

  • Jack Thompson, Dr. Phil, and Rush Limbaugh

    Can we unclench over 'school shooting video games'?

    What do those three names have in common besides the fact that they’re overpaid talking heads? Well, two of them have placed the blame for the Virginia Tech massacre squarely on video games while one of them dismissed the idea and it may not be the ones that you think.

    Ok, Jack Thompson is the one that you think. That should have come as no surprise.

    What did come as a surprise was TV quack, Dr. Phil. I was never a big fan of his to begin with but I thought he had more smarts than this…

    Well, Larry, every situation is different. The question really is can we spot them. And the problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me – common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high.

    What came as even more of a surprise was radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh coming to the defense of gamers.

    Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There’s more to this than that, it may desensitize people, but it doesn’t turn everybody into mass murderers?

    People have a tough time accepting a relatively simple explanation for something of this scale. But how many people are playing video games out there? How many millions of people play video games, and how many millions of people have guns?

    As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows.

  • Mr. Thompson Goes to Delaware

    Mr. Thompson Goes to Delaware

    Bill would limit sale of video games:

    Our favorite idiot lawyer from Florida is on the move again. This time he’s in Delaware trying to help State Rep. Helene Keeley, D-Wilmington South, get a law passed that would restrict businesses from selling M-rated games to minors. Never mind the fact that most legitimate stores won’t sell M-Rated games to anyone under 18 and that the majority of kids who get these games are getting through their parents. Jack never lets facts get in his way. Like this little nugget of misinformation from Jack…

    Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Colorado teens who massacred 13 of their fellow Columbine High School students in 1999, “literally trained on the game ‘Doom,’ ” Thompson said.

    Sure, they did Jack. Just forget all those tapes they made, showing them at a homemade target practice. I myself, and millions of other people, have played Doom and never picked up a gun in anger but again let’s not let facts get in the way.

    Jack also had this to say about the free speech ramifications…

    Thompson, meanwhile, said the First Amendment debate is misplaced.

    “This isn’t even speech,” Thompson said, holding up a video-game display box. “This is software that enables a machine to allow a player to play a game.”

    Does he really believe the lies that he’s spewing forth?

    When will politicians, especially Democrats, stop getting in bed with this assclown? It’s making them look worse than they already are.

  • The king is dead, long live the king

    The king is dead, long live the king

    Tenn. Killer Played GTA:

    I knew this was going to happen. I think we all did. Our favorite Miami ambulance chaser Jack Thompson has reared his ugly asshatted head and has come out and said that he will “swear under oath” that Ken Bartley played GTA. Bartley is 15. It’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel to say the kid played GTA…

    The revelation is considered significant by Thompson because initial accounts of the shooting show that the teen did not go to school with the intent to kill, and it appears that an event triggered the teenager into committing homicide, which was programmed into the brain via rehearsal in Grand Theft Auto. Here’s what the press release stated:

    …as it appears, based upon initial accounts of the shooting, that the 15-year-old boy did not go to school with the intent to kill. As has happened in other instances, as in the triple homicide in Fayette, Alabama, by an 18-year-old obsessive player of the cop-killing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a highly-charged emotional event can serve as a trigger for such a shooting. These killing games allow an individual, unwittingly, to rehearse for homicide. When pushed by fear, the game’s rehearsal function becomes the young brain’s “default setting.”

    Jack Thompson has ascended to ranks of assclownery of the likes that have only previously been obtained by Michael Moore. And Mr. Thompson reaches it in the same way, by being a morbid opportunist using as many tragedies as possible to further his viewpoint.

    Back to the point at hand. I’m sure it was GTA that made Ken Bartley kill. I’m sure it had nothing to do with a substance abuse problem.

    Congratulations, Jack, you have usurped Michael Moore’s throne and are now King of All Assclowns. Hail to the king.

  • Devin Moore Sentenced to Death

    Devin Moore Sentenced to Death

    Man Gets Death for Killing Three in Ala.:

    Devin Moore, the 18-year-old who was convicted of killing two police officers and a dispatcher, was sentenced to death.

    If you remember, Moore’s attorneys tried blaming his actions on Grand Theft Auto. But the defense attorneys are already looking to appeal on the grounds that the video game “evidence” was excluded, and the fact that the jury was all white while Moore is black. 🙄

    An all-plaid jury would have convicted him. He killed three cops. He deserves to die.

    Take that, Jack Thompson.

  • Death Recommended for Devin Moore

    Death Recommended for Devin Moore

    Jury recommends death for Alabama man convicted in cop killings:

    The death sentence has been recommended by an Alabama jury for Devin Moore, the so-called “GTA Killer” who killed two officers and a radio dispatcher at the Fayette police station in June 2003. For those of you who may not remember, defense attorneys tried blaming Moore’s obsessive playing of the video game Grand Theft Auto on the killings. Luckily, he was convicted of the killings. The final decision on sentencing is up to the judge and is scheduled for September 30th.

    Hopefully, Alabama will live up to its reputation and execute this piece of human filth. And what do you know, Alabama still has the electric chair.

  • Cop Killer Convicted

    Cop Killer Convicted

    Video Game Player Guilty in Ala. Slaying:

    I originally told you about this story back in February about Devin Moore. He’s the 18-year-old kid who shot and killed three police officers, and when he was arrested, he said: “Life is a video game; everybody has to die sometime.” Of course, the games in question were GTA games. Which in turn prompted a lawsuit against Rockstar Games by Moore’s family, prompted by everyone’s favorite assclown Jack Thompson.

    Anyway, Devin Moore was convicted of capital murder. That means he’s eligible for the death penalty. In Alabama, that’s a very likely possibility.

    Tip to CB.

  • Bully Protest

    Bully Protest

    Teens Protest ‘Columbine-Like’ Video Game:

    Thank you very much, Jack Thompson. Now everyone who is not a gamer is referring to Bully as “The Columbine Game”. Apparently, a group of teenage busybodies known as the Peaceaholics protested at Rockstar Games’ New York office…

    “A lot of youth are playing these games and there’s a lot of violence that people are copying,” said Cordero Sellers, 16. “I’m trying to do my best to stop this release.”

    “It’s important that we’re here today because violent images seen on games are copied by kids,” said Anthony Ford, 17.

    “We’re trying to stop people getting hurt before it’s too late.”

    Oh, and guess who accompanied them…

    Florida lawyer and anti-violence activist John Thompson accompanied the kids.

    “Columbine changed the face of America but you [Rockstar] are about to come out with a game that celebrates, glamorizes and trains kids to do what [Columbine killers] Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did,” said Thompson.

    “Bullying is not a subject for a video game. We are not asking Rockstar to stop making this game, we are demanding they stop.”

    Again with the Columbine comparison.

    Do these people do any research at all? I have yet to see any gameplay details from the game outside of Rockstar’s official description…

    Rockstar is keeping details of the plot a closely guarded secret but describes it as “humorous” and “tongue in cheek.”

    The company states on its Web site: “As a troublesome schoolboy, you’ll stand up to bullies, get picked on by teachers, play pranks on malicious kids, win or lose the girl and ultimately learn to navigate the obstacles of the fictitious reform school Bullworth Academy.”

    So, as far as I know, there has been no mention of shooting and killing your other classmates. So these people are just assuming. And we know what happens when you assume. Jack Thompson makes an even bigger assclown out of himself.

  • GTA: Grand Theft Assclown IV

    GTA: Grand Theft Assclown IV

    Lawsuit: ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Led Teen to Kill:

    This one actually was in the news last week, but I forgot about until today. More on that later.

    Anyway, our favorite ambulance chaser, not John Edwards, is at it again. “Attorney” Jack Thompson is once again blaming the woes of society on one particular series of video games. He’s filed a lawsuit in Alabama against the game’s manufacturers and two stores that allegedly sold the games to an underage person. The person in question is Devin Moore, who shot two police officers and a dispatcher to death after being brought to the Fayette police station on suspicion of driving a stolen car.

    Of course, the video game series in question is the Grand Theft Auto series…

    The suit alleges Moore purchased “Grand Theft Auto III” at the Gamestop in Jasper and “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” at the Jasper Wal-Mart when he was under 17. The games, which depict police killings and other acts of violence, are rated M, meaning they are appropriate for those 17 or older.

    Named in the suit are Wal-Mart Stores (search) and Gamestop along with Take-Two Interactive Software, the manufacturer of the games, and Sony Computer Entertainment, the maker of the PlayStation 2.

    Why did Thompson file the suit this time?

    At a December hearing, authorities said Devin Moore, when he was apprehended, told officers,”Life is a video game. You’ve got to die sometime.”

    And check out Thompson’s great reasoning for filing the suit…

    “What has happened in Alabama is that four companies participated in the training of Devin … to kill three men,” attorney Jack Thompson told The Tuscaloosa News, which reported the suit’s filing.

    Granted that Walmart and GameStop should not have been selling these games to an underage kid, but why were the parents allowing it into the house?

    My main point is though is that everyone is responsible for their own actions. This assclown Jack Thompson wants you to think that you’re not responsible for anything. These kids that kill who have happened to have played a violent video game are screwed up in the head in the first place. My guess is Jack Thompson is looking for an angle since he missed out on the McDonald’s hot coffee settlement. Either that or he’s just jealous he can’t beat any of the games. Seriously, what is this guy’s problem with video games?

    What made me think of this again was this interview Jack Thompson did with CBSNews.com. I almost posted this under the Tin Foil Hat category because of some of the things he says.

    He calls Entertainment Software Association President Doug Lowenstein, the Joseph Goebbels of the video game industry. He infers that the increase in school violence is caused by video games. Claims he predicted Columbine 8 days before it happened.

    I’ll start you off with a quote from Mr. Thompson from the interview…

    The heads of six major health care organizations testified before Congress that there are “hundreds” of studies that prove the link. All the video game industry has are studies paid for by them, which are geared to find the opposite result. Lawyers call such experts “whores.”

    Pot, I have the kettle holding for you on line 2.

    Read the interview to see what kind of nut job this shyster really is. If it were up to him, we’d blame everything from the war in Iraq to Paris Hilton’s Sidekick being hacked on Grand Theft Auto. This guy really needs to get a life.

    UPDATE: The guys from Penny Arcade have their own take on sue happy attorneys.

    Here’s another take on it from joystiq.com.