Grand Theft Auto Sparks Another Lawsuit
Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive, Sony, Wal-Mart, and GameStop are blamed for the murder of three policemen by a teenage car thief.
Source: GameSpotJust when the furor over Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's "Kill all the Haitians!" level had finally died down, the game sparked another lawsuit. Along with its predecessor Grand Theft Auto III, the crime-action game is being blamed for inspiring the triple murder of three Fayette, Alabama, police officers.
Devin Thompson, 18, is accused of the slayings, which occurred after he was arrested in 2003 for suspicion of the crime of grand theft auto. According to the Associated Press, when he was caught, Thompson said, "Life is a video game. You've got to die sometime." While being booked at the station, he allegedly grabbed a police officer's pistol and then shot its owner and two other officers in the head--all three died. Thompson is then said to have driven off in a stolen police car, but was later apprehended. He is currently being charged with three counts of first-degree murder, and is set to go to trial on July 11.
Two of the victims' next-of-kin have filed a lawsuit accusing the two GTA games as having "trained and motivated" Thompson to commit his crimes. Besides Take-Two, the other defendants named in the near-60-page, $600 million suit are Wal-Mart and GameStop, where Thompson is said to have bought both M-rated games while under the ESRB-mandated 17-year-old purchase age. Sony Computer Entertainment America, makers of Thompson's PlayStation 2 console, is also named in the legal filing.
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How 'bout his ****ty parents who didn't instill any morals into the kid when he was growing up? How would they like it if the families of the officers sued them for negligent parenting?
It's not the perpetrator's family who's sueing these corporations, it's the victims' families.