Schizophrenic guy kills, says GTA told him to do it |
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Y'know, law books in the future will soon come to include the classic "GTA defense." Look at the sheer glut of criminal acts that perpetrators attribute to titles in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series. It's practically become the next gen version of the insanity plea.
Over in London, a teenager loaded with "skunk weed", a high-strength kind of cannabis, murdered a 51-year old woman. Why? According to a report from ThisIsLondon.co.uk, Ezekiel Maxwell, a paranoid schizophrenic, committed the crime because "gangster voices" from a Grand Theft Auto game told him to do so.
Maxwell apparently believed that he was Carl Johnson, the main character in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The crime happened on September 5 last year, but we're guessing that the reason this has come to light now is due in part to the recent rash of "skunk"-related crime pieces in London papers. Of course, the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto IV may also be part of it, but that's kind of far-fetched.
We should also note that Maxwell had been smoking cannabis and "skunk" as well as taking cocaine since he was 14. He had also been diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Unless there's something wrong with your head in the first place, playing a violent videogame won't turn you into some kind of homicidal maniac.
Via This Is London
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Comments [refresh]
cough" bull"cough
you'd think someone like that would be limited from seeing anything violent such as a video game.
then again,i hear a voice that tells me to rescue a princess...
so if anyone knows any princesses for me to save,send me a message.
I am getting so f'ing tired of all this *****. Is this the new "temporary insanity"-plea?
thats
VIc Vance from GTA VCS
We live in a world full of retards who believes that video games are the source of violence instead of looking at the real problem. Yup, that's right: Guns. Why are you allowed to buy guns in America? Stupid government...
I blame the parents and the person themselves, for not being responsible enough to deal with such things. Blaming video games just won't do, and gives the industry a bad name.
I BLAME JESUS CHRIST AND JACK THOMSPON.
skunk is no different to what most people smoke. why try and hype weed up by calling it skunk. How many people smoke weed who look at this comment? Do you feel the need to go murder someone.
Stupid Southern Fairy. Its always fookin London.
Northern Monkeys FTW
sweet, i can kill my very irritative grandma now.. i mean, i can blame GTA for egging me to do it..
Thing is, this happened in London, UK. Not in the USA...
This happened in the uk and was a stabbing. I've played GTA many times over so have my friends we are not going around trying to kill everyone, we dont hear voices in our heads, neither are we trying to rob any banks or people. I hope the judge in court realises that its not games that are cause of problems like this. One more thing mentally ill people often have doctors who are supposed to determin whether or not people are fit to roam around with other members of society I guess they made a bad call on this fool.
I actually saw that estarguitar comment in my "post new comment" thing...which is really weird...
well think about it .. gta cause of a killing. ha the amount of killing god has caused "when i say that i mean, the excuses for the killings eg. god told me to" are though the roof compared to gta.
kids that smoke weed an do class A's should not play GTA and then make up a lame excuse.
Just think if an outside force were coming to play invade you, wouldn't you want to have a gun? If you ban guns then you should ban household chemicals, gasoline and even water. Hell you can take dc electricity and turn water back to hydrogen and oxygen which together with an ignition source is highly explosive.
jack tompson must have paid ppl to do that, to use as evidence or wateva, the git
when its burned it smells like skunk.
..smoking "KJ" not "skunk"
If he didn't have GTA there would be something else for him to hear voices from. Perhaps Arnold would have told him to do it while watching Terminator.
The guy is seriously messed up, GTA isn't the cause and I'm shocked that they even reported that minor detail.
But because they have, people will probably take it seriously and Jack Thompson will get a few more recruits. To those people I say; You're just as deluded as Ezekiel Maxwell.
hey... wait a minute... I'm so sure that's the kid I mugged ealier in the year... somewhere in the january, I left him outcold and lying in his blood..
i guess everytime i jump on someone i can just go to court and say mario told me to do it
this ***** is clearly trying to get some sort of lesser sentencing, give him life in prison
whats kj?
Like it says, if theres nothing wrong with your head in the first place before you play these games, then theres no real problem, because all your marbles are in the right place and you've got a very solid grip on reality. If however you've been ruining yourself with drugs for years, then it only makes sense that things are going to affect you differently. Get rid of the drugs an you'll rarely see stories like this again. Since he was 14? No wonder hes schizophrenic. Drugs are for tossers with IQ's still in the single figures.
What are you a cop or politician?
Sickening how drugs are blamed for everything. Marijuana makes people less violent and is one of the mildest drugs there is.
He's a schizophrenic, and has a chronic mental disorder. While 14 is too young to use any drug, his parents are to blame for that. He likely uses drugs because of schizophrenia, but the schizophrenia led him to kill. That's one of the reasons how dumbasses in the USA got weed illegal in the first place. They said some guy with schizophrenia killed his family because he smoked weed. That's what led to Refer Madness, the most rediculous anti drug movie of all time. Schizophrenia is a disease you are born with, it isn't caused by drugs! What are you smoking?
My god you are the stupidest person I've ever seen on this forum.
So stupid...
Scag barron - weed is 10 times stronger than it was two decades ago - to claim it dosent affect your mental health is ludicrously ignorant!! - it does - ive seen it happen to so many people / friends.
It's 10 times better now. You're 10 times less likely to kill someone. Why don't you try it and see if you want to kill people and blame it on a videogame. Yeah, schizophrenia had NOTHING to do with it. Hearing voices is a symtom of schizophrenia, and leads people to do irrational things! Read a book!
Well, i have .... and im not saying it will automayicly make you want to kill somone - but i dont know anyone over the age of 23 that still smokes it and that cant admit that weed does infact have a negative effect on their cognative functions. Unfortunatley if you smoke from a young age then you just wont realise that your life would be a lot more fullfilling and productive untill you actually stop.
i like the way its blamed mainly on the weed, and coke is only mentioned the 1 time
despite the fact that coke is a million times worse
if he was smokin up some super cronic, he probably wouldnt of been able to move, let alone kill sumone!!!
and if he could move he'd probably only get as far as his fridge
dont you just hate the uneducated :)
Marijuana only makes schizophrenia if Your Comply To It... So If Your Not Comply TO Get schizophrenia, it doesent Chance Yout Mentality!
I have a lot of friends that smoke weed and they study in college and others work and they started smoking since they were like 13-15 (most of them are like 22 now. If you read books you will know that weed does less damage than alcohol and cigarettes. It is true that weed kills some neurones but it is not enough to cause a mental illness.
These mulians! How is this possible? The game sucks.
I smoke skunk and hear voices telling me to smoke more, does that label me as a killa.
it makes me sick to see all you morons defending weed.
why not Saints Row, it's a GTA rip. Or Duke Nukem (Hell Yeah). These "GTA made me do it" claims only stared happening when it went the way of 3D. Who remember the original GTA, GTA: London, and GTA 2 for the original playstation??? They couldn't use that excuse then because the violence was cartoony, same violence, just cartoony.
I thought sane people take out there frustrations from the real world INSIDE the video game.
We live in a world full of retards who believes that video games are the source of violence instead of looking at the real problem. Yup, that's right: Guns. Why are you allowed to buy guns in America? Stupid government...
You do realize our country was won by......gunfights; you know, in WARS. Dumbass. That's why all americans have the right to bear arms, LEGALLY NOT ILLEGALLY.
dude, have you ever smelled a LIVE skunk. Skunk weed smells nothing like that s**t.
that says it all. F**k the weed and f**k using GTA as an excuse.
That means he is hearing voices and video games are not responsible.
the cookey moster made me eat my cookey Ho know. What a bunch of bull *****. anyone that stupid should be ***** in the head and left bleeding on the floor.
The sad reality, drugs are NEVER GOING AWAY. As long as one person in the world knows how to make them. Even making cocaine requires chemistry. Anybody can grow weed.
They hype it up and call it skunk to sell newspapers...
schizophrenia isn't caused by drugs at all. you can be BORN WITH IT.
Like Red forman says; DUMBASS
With my ignorance I shall use this excuse to get another law suit for being a public nuisance
it makes me sick to see all you morons defending weed.
would you prefer they defend coke?
I bet you take prescription DRUGS. Have you ver seen some of the side effects. Prescription drugs can f**k you up bad too, they just controlled by licensed drug dealers (pharmacists). Some also have side effects like blood clots, stroke, and heart failure. Do some research my friend, a DRUG is a DRUG. Prescription or not.
I get told to ***** off and die but i dont do it.
In Manhunt you get voices in your head when you wear the headset but it don make me go and kill some one with a plastic bag!
There should be a New Law. "You can never blame a game for your crime" You inbread morons
He probably paid him to say GTA told him to kill so he would have more ***** to point at to support his case against video games.
it is people like him that get GTA, perfectly fine game looked down upon...i play GTA, and I make straight a's and am very athletic and i hate drugs....but the "GAME" hint hint ;) is fun....that retart sucks......
thats tru lool
If current illegal drugs could be legalized if drug dealers could afford lobyists to give the right politicians gifts, campaign contributions, and vacations to introduce and vote for new legislation. Why do you think legal drug makers can have a patent and charge whatever they want for 8 years for medication people need to live? Americans get screwed hard core on prescription drugs because of corruption. That's why many people go to Canada for medication, and lawmakers are even trying to stop that!
Prescription drugs kill far more people than illegal drugs ever did!
Enforcment of drug laws kills far more people than the drugs do (think prohibition)!
Alcohol kills an insane amount of people per year, yet nobody complains about that!
Watch "Illegal drugs and how they got that way" on the History Channel to see how fu*cked up the system is.
This happened in the UK MORONS... no where near america...
I remembered back in the 90's, ppl start beating up and killing ppl after playing Mortal Kombat II or watching some violence gangsta crime movies, but understand it dont let your kids watch it and if you are grown, please have some sense in your head because this is so stupid to do things off a video game or movie because you cant blame it, so it is your responsibility for everything you do, so stop being dumb
You ALL know he is JUSt saying this so he can get the crazy defense, so he can get a slap on the wrist for his crime.
STop taking this guy serious. As in Stop thinking he is REALLY blaming gta... he is simply using it as a scape goat to get off.
I have been a loyaly pothead for over 15 years now and have never had a problem with violent acts because of this anybody who has ever smoked weed more than one time knows how timid and passive you become while stoned. I have also done alot of coke and this also does not promote you to do acts of violence unless smoked which is then called crack. I have been a loyal gamer since the days of the amiga and have never had a thought of doing an act of violence in real life just because I experienced it in a video game, this guy is just a nutter and is using this for an insanity plea to get off!
i could smoke the most potent weed in the world and im not gunna be hearing voices......seeing colors....or any stupid $hit like that......let alone do what the voices tell me 2....
give the *ucker the death sentence n' be done with it.
Murder is murder......no excuses
if anything it was the cocaine that screwed his head up, he was probably freebasin' that stuff or somthing
XD
skunk has been known to cause all these mental diseases but regular strength cannabis is fine
nothing wrong with it as long as you don't become a complete head
dont they realise that. He is schizophrenic so the likleyhood is that he would hear voices anyways, so blaming gta is a load of s**t. He should go to jail, murder is murder.
...the idea that it is ilegal to say games made you do it.Im tired of hearing people say that sothey could get outta the blame because of "insanity"
Where are the people to put a stop to these kinda blamings. A while back a little gil jumpped off of her kitchen counter with a broom and blamed it on harry potter! then, also with columbine, they blamed Doom! There should be a law on it saying no blamiing a movie or game.
thats my 2 cents lol.
i know this is kinda stupid but do you ever think those crazy a hole people who dont want kids playing "violent" video games hire theese people to do things like this and blame it on the games by the way this is a sad story best wishes to the family of the 51 year old women
Ah *****, here we go again, W T F
haha
I heard somewhere that CATS (the animal) can cause schizophrenia, so I'm pretty sure almost anything can cause it. Not that I'm saying drugs helped kill the woman (figuratively), it's just that drugs can do different things to different people. What YOU experience can be different from what other people experience. The drugs could have caused him to give him the long-time urge to kill someone.
He was Schizophrenic - does mental illness mean nothing to you people. Who cares what the defense is...
and if you think it's not real - then i'll flukkin kill you too
lol again...sick
Well, You know Americans, they have to make everything abou them, tards.
I agree that it should be Illegal to blame video games. And the blame should be soely shifted to the accused caregiver(s) Skizopherenia is a SERIOUS disorder with SERIOUS concequences if the caregiver isnt attentive. This isnt an article why people shouldnt play GTA, this is an artical about why people should yake Skitzophrenia more seriously
Don't think for a god damn second that weed had anything to do with it, or you'r banned from QJ :/.
dont get me wrong, but thats hilarious..... well, i guess the only way to take that is wrong..... still, that schizzy should be locked up in a room playing james bond until he thinks he is him
It's not the guy's fault. It's Carl Johnsons. Why did CJ have to mess with a crazy's head by telling him to do this?
Kristian, it's called facing your condition and learning how to act... If you are bi-polar, then you need to relax when you start having rage swings. If you are depressed, you need to deal with it enough to be able to work your job. If you are schizo, then you need to learn not to listen to the voices. There is too much lack of responsibility nowadays. HAVING A MENTAL ILLNESS IS NOT A FREE PASS TO BREAK THE LAW DOUCE!
F[(k you! You queer!
First off, marijuana certainly does alter cognitive functioning. However, it does not alter cognition in such a way that one's sense of right and wrong is impaired to the point that committing murder seems like an okay thing to do.
Secondly, to reply to the individual who posted that schizophrenics should refuse to listen to the voices that they hear. As someone who works with schizophrenics, I can say that this view is completely uninformed. Unlike other mental illnesses where the capacity to distinguish between reality and fantasy remains basically intact, individuals with severe schizophrenia simply have no ability to make the distinction. Even the concepts of "reality" and "fantasy" are virtually meaningless to them.
Thirdly, if we decide that games like GTA should be banned because they cause schizophrenics to commit crimes, we should also be banning the Bible. In my years of working with schizophrenics I have known many of them to do commit terrible crimes, including murder, but in most cases the schizophrenics explain that they were compelled to commit their crimes because the devil of the Bible told them to do so, not because of violent video games.
Just my two cents.
Link0 you are a uneducated retard that politicians will gladly hire just cause of your biased stupidity. Open your mind, stop letting the government and media influenece your thinking.
I jumped off a building because "Red Bull gives you wiings".. where can I find a lawyer to sue them? In my agitated state of mind caused by the red bull I also thought I could kill people and fend off the police with my trusty bazooka and arsenal .. JUST like in GTA! Amazing how accurately GTA is to reality. Oh yeah and the Mortal Kombat flashbacks are becoming more frequent.. I feel the need to rip peoples hearts/spines out whenever someone says "FINISH HIM!" BTW is this reefer madness all over again?
Here is a study that proves that Violent Video Games can increase aggression:
http://www.apa.org/releases/videogames.html
I'll stick to the facts. My mom took away the South Park N64 game that my cousin had bought me for Christmas one year because of the cussing and she had taken a copy of the SNES version of Doom that my uncle bought me the year that it was released because of the blood and violence and the Columbine Massacre.
Society always has something to blame. It used to be atheists, or black people, or Japanese people. Now it's video games. At least we have shifted from people to inanimate objects.
and I hear voices telling me to kill all emos... Primary weapon of choice, a RZRblade..... Lock n' load!
One of my closest friends has tourrets, autism etc but she doesn't go around killing people and blaming it on GTA.
This is as bad as that girl in Fl who killed a guy and claimed it was the E she took, since when are drugs part of the defense, shouldnt that make the crime that much worse.
Besides, skunk weed sucks.
As a former pot smoker who suffers from manic depression and played GTA, the only victim I left in my wake was a bag of cool ranch doritos.
You don't know what it is like to not know the difference between real and not real. To not know what you are doing - where you have been - what you have done or why. You don't know anything. If you think that mental illness is simply a matter of not doing something and you're fine then you need some real education.
My comment about killing wasn't meant to be real.
But the way people treat mental illness is horrible.
You try and be Schizophrenic - you try and see what it is like when you have no control over yourself. The times when you do have control you're barely alive. And people think that you're a horrible person.
Let me tell you something. I will go to heaven - I am a good person. Despite what this illness has made me do or will make me do.
I fight harder then you can imagine - don't think that breaking the law has anything to do with wanting to. If someone breaks the law knowingly - then they should be jailed - if they do it unknowingly, like someone in a Psychotic state - then they should be given time in a mental institution. We aren't animals - we're human too.
Get that schizophrenic! He's smoking skunk while riding away on the back of the GTA Escape Goat!
He must be following Personal Responsibility, which already rode off into the sunset, never to be seen again.
Wow, Jack Thomson must've worked his ass off for this
STOP giving schizophrenics a bad name.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE have schizophrenia have a physical discease in their brain. This does not mean they go out and KILL PEOPLE !.
a "PSYCHOPATH", is someone who KILLS!
What kind of ignorant authors publish on this this!!> ?
Lock his ass UP! LOCK HIS ASS UUP! I honestly don't give a S#!t if he's Scitzophrenic(I know I misspelled it, it's a hard wod to spell). That sucks for him, but let me ask you this..do you REALLY want this psyco walking around on the streets? He killed an innocent woman because he *quote* "Thought that he was CJ from Grand Theft Auto", and that the"gangster voices" told him to kill tha *****. I say get him a psych evaluaction, and if he is out of his mind, place him in a maximum security hospital. At least there he can hear the "gangster voices" from the comfort of his strait jacket.
Death by Hanging. >:)
Never violent when im stoned .... The guys a frikin skitzo does it really matter what video game he played?
How about oj simpson ,, nah it was DEFINATly GTA.
Osama bin laden ? HE played GTA too.
Get a *****ing life guys , Skizto's hear voices and kill people. THATS WHAT THEY DO> who gives a ***** what video games he played... THE PROBLEM IS HIS SKITZO BRAIN NOT THE GAMES> > > >
put 100 guns around 100 sane people... No one dies. Put one gun around a retard that thinks guns are "unsafe" that has issues in his brain ,, like being a skitzo... I sure hope some one has a gun to take his crazybean ass out
i just get pissed at how many retards buy into this. and say things like no more guns. It would be cheeper to just kill all the skitzos
Its not the guns dumb***** its the people that used them.
***** Baron you're a dumbass. He's not saying the drugs made him violent he's saying they rotted his mind. ***** off.
I'd rather they shut the ***** up and not defend any drug.
Of course its a nig.ger that killed someone...
and marijuana does not harm the body , if you quit the negitive effects vanish (aside from the whole smoking thing).
in the early days it was made illegal to stop migration. Thats the simple truth.
Alcohol has a better chance of causing you long term harm. (alcoholism, liver failure)
I'm a bipolar with borderline personality disorder. I have a college degree and am working on a Master's as well. I work a job, pay for a car, and live life like everyone else. There are good days and there are bad days and there are really good days and really bad days. Just like with everyone out there. Now, that being said, there is a thing called medication. It is something that people with severe conditions (like me and you, Kristian) need to take, no matter how much we don't want to or don't feel we need to. The really bad days are enough to prove that medication is necessary for severe mental disorders. Going to therapy, taking medicine, and TRYING to improve are a responsibility and a requirement. When the person who is sick disposes of the truth of his/her responsibility to seek help and continue taking medicine and doing whatever else is necessary to remain healthy, then the fault is his/her own. I DO know what it is like, and I am here to say that there are NO excuses.
ps - weed doesn't make anyone violent, just stupid. Coke, E, Meth, and painkillers change a person. Weed makes people lazy, hungry, and tired. I never could understand where people even got the idea that weed could cause such things (have you ever seen "Reefer Madness" it is a hilarious video from the 50s or 60s that shows weed causing terrible reactions in people. It is so funny.). My mom once thought you could inject weed into your veins, boy I had a hayday with that one. It's like guns. Guns don't kill people, Stupid people WITH guns kill people. Same with weed and everything out there (like cars or cigarettes), I mean, really, think about it a bit. Anything can be used as an excuse for stupid life choices, the truth is that most of the cause is stupidity or seeking a way out of being responsible for self-chosen actions.