Scottish Police Blame Throat Slashing on Gears of War

[Andy Chalk]

Scottish Police Blame Throat Slashing on Gears of War

The chairman of the Scottish Police Federation says more must be done to keep underage gamers from playing 18-rated games.

In April, a 13-year-old boy attacked a 14-year-old acquaintance in the town of Clydebank, Scotland, slashing his throat deeply enough to expose his windpipe and causing a wound that required surgery and 20 staples to close. As if that wasn't bad enough, the boy apparently told his victim, "Don't die," before "calmly walking off."

The pair first ran into each other online around Christmas 2011 while playing Gears of War 3 and then met in real life sometime after that; about a month prior to the attack they apparently had a falling-out, "amounting to name-calling via the messaging system used in the game," according to Andrew Brown, the prosecutor in the case.

Unfortunately, the roots of their connection and conflict have police once again blaming games for causing violence. "The reporting officer was of the opinion that the violent videogames played online by the accused may have been a factor in his conduct," Brown told the court. Brian Docherty, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, also weighed in, saying, "These games are rated 18 and shouldn't be played by children of this young age - but online gaming may be outside their parents' knowledge. We need to look again at what we can do to stop this."

A Microsoft rep expressed sympathy for the victim and his family but pointed out that the Xbox 360 is already designed to limit access to inappropriate content. "We have some of the most robust parental control systems to empower parents to decide how their children play and communicate," the rep said. But that system is obviously dependent upon parental input and monitoring, which Docherty doesn't seem to think is an effective approach to take.

The Daily Mail [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2318846/13-year-old-Xbox-player-slashed-friends-throat-knife-row-met-online-playing-ultra-violent-game-Gears-War-3.html] also noted that the 13-year-old assailant has a child of his own, the implications of which I will leave you to discuss amongst yourselves.



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[lacktheknack]

He has his own child?

Well, clearly, saying his parents should pay more attention to what he does is a useless avenue.

 

[AJey]

I blame it on police then, if all we're doing is throwing blame around.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

two things.

1. the fact that he's 13 and has a child of his own proves that his parents are absent and inneffective, and with the xbox's parental controls, they could have prevented his exposure. although i dont blame the game at all.

2. he slashed the kid's throat deep enough to expose the windpipe and he didn't die? that's pretty hardcore. i usually think of throat-slashing as a death sentence. he's gonna have a badass scar.

 

[MiskWisk]

Did he use a chainsaw? No?
Better luck next time then.

 

[weirdee]

You heard it from Docherty, folks. Parents are a completely ineffective safety measure when it comes to children. Maybe he should consider investing in some straitjackets.

 

[Shinsei-J]

Oh god, the blame game again?
I now have a queued response for anytime someone goes crey-cray and people try to blame something else.
It goes as such.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Thankfully, and I never thought I'd say this about Daily Mail commenters, sense has actually prevailed and are the highest rated comments are all saying that the game really isn't to blame here.

Also I can't say I'm surprised that this happened in Clydebank.

 

[Teoes]

13 year-old Clydebank resident with his own wean, stabs another boy over some name-calling? Aye, sounds about right.

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

But that system is obviously dependent upon parental input and monitoring, which Docherty doesn't seem to think is an effective approach to take.

Ah, but of course not, Chairman Docherty. We should let the game consoles do all the parenting. It would be the greatest innovation in gaming history. It would remove the burdening chores that comes with parenting, making it as if the parents never had children in the first place. The systems of tomorrow can drive the little Johns and Janes to school every morning, take them home to a cooked meal and tuck them into bed with a goodnight story, then finally quarrel with its spouse about when a proper divorce will be finalized while Jane/John tries not to cry herself/himself to sleep again because of it.

No, I don't have problems. >.>

Anywho, blaming it on games is completely ridiculous. It sounds much more like a severe case of 'racking disciprine' than anything else.

 

[oplinger]

While I think the parents are to blame here, I can't help but maybe agree to:

"The reporting officer was of the opinion that the violent videogames played online by the accused may have been a factor in his conduct,"

They may have been a factor. Not so much a cause, or even teaching him how to do it. However, stating that it may have had something to do with it in some way, I can't really say he's wrong or right. I do agree that it also may have not helped anything...

 

[cwmdulais]

uhhh, scotland, what are we going to do with you guys?

 

[lacktheknack]

Oh god, the blame game again?
I now have a queued response for anytime someone goes crey-cray and people try to blame something else.
It goes as such.

That boy needs therapy. It's psychosomatic.

Now tighten your buttocks, pour juice on your chin, I promised my girlfriend I could play the violin.

This is hip hop and sampling at its finest.

 

[Longstreet]

I agree that GoW was the cause.
I mean, he did MET the kid on there, but thats bout as far as it goes.

Specially since he has his own kid, he should be slapped around by his folks a bit more and learned some manners and common sense.

 

[R.Nevermore]

He's 13 with a child of his own, he slashed open someone's throat... Does he have any other history of violence or criminal behaviour? Because he sounds like a complete deviant and I have a hard time believing that his video game habits had anything to do with his... Social issues.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

But that system is obviously dependent upon parental input and monitoring, which Docherty doesn't seem to think is an effective approach to take.

Is it wrong I sort of agree with him on this part? If anything, most parents nowadays have no idea what their kids do with their spare time. It's obvious this kid wasn't mature enough to play this game, he lacked the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality and decided to settle his dispute in the most "badass" (read: stupid) way possible, and yet his parents let him go on ahead. We do need to get parents to monitor these cases where kids actually will imitate video games and put a stop to them, but sadly most of them just don't care enough.

Also, I don't think the title of the article is all that accurate, the officer seemed to blame the fact an under aged kid was playing these games, and not the game itself.

 

[Therumancer]

I think our problem is that we in the US like to tend to think of children as being harmless and passive. We like to try and claim that it's video games, movies, music, and other things that make kids violent, as opposed to that simply being human nature, and parents needing to teach kids how to channel and control that. Anyone with half a brain can look at the news and see kids being turned into hardened soldiers throughout the third world (Africa, The Middle East, etc...). Even in the US we have little kids becoming hardened criminals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_%22Yummy%22_Sandifer

Along with this we've had things like stabbings over pokemon cards.... internationally for that matter

http://articles.philly.com/2000-05-12/news/25616707_1_metal-detectors-pokemon-card-school-district-police-officer

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/1999/10/27/Pokemon991027.html

I think one of the central issues here is that each generation is smarter than the last and matures quicker and we're seeing a substantial differance between the reality of human maturation and capability and the culture we've built up around the expectations of kids being less capable.

I also think that a big problem here is that we let the media and politicians use boogiemen like video games to get around the real issues too easily. It's easier to blame video games than it is for violent youth culture, oftentimes stemming from black culture (which influances more than just blacks nowadays, hence discussions about "Wiggers" and the like). Simply put it's the whole "get rich or die trying" attitude and glorification of violence as a lifestyle (if you aren't rich enough to be above it in an absolute sense) that I think can be blamed for a lot of this. We live in a day and age where we have kids dealing drugs in elementary schools, and being entirely serious when they talk about killing people who cross them or don't show "proper respect". That's less "Gears Of War" and more "Snoop Dog" or "50 Cent" or whomever is wearing the hat at the moment. That's very much a "culture" that promotes doing things like slashing the throat of someone who disrespects you, even through a video game. Of course you start talking about targeting that stuff, and a huge defense mechanism comes into play, starting with accusations of racism, to claims that it's "too complicated to judge", and of course the bottom line of whether we should wind up censoring or banning various anti-societal artists and "entertainers" that fuel these subcultures, and single out the regions where these attitudes come from for special treatment and the like. All of which are VERY touchy issues, especially with the left wing in such power right now. Basically there isn't much blowback from a politician going after video games right now, but if a politician decided they wanted to subjectively remove the right of certain parts of the population to say and do certain things as a prelude to say dragging a bunch of Rap Stars, and Hip Hop Performers off to jail and tossing them in a deep hole... well that would be a much bigger deal. Ditto for suggestions that we do things like give the police "blank warrents" (similar to Canada) in certain areas know to be paticular problems, and pretty much let things like old school CRASH units go to town with close limits on what kind of media coverage we'll allow.

The point I'm making here is that by actually doing anything when it comes to these big issues your going to piss people off, because those big issues are BIG because there is no real solution within our current societal infrastructure, which is why the problems haven't been solved already. Right now video games are easy to blame because they don't have the defense mechanisms in place that movies, music, and various social and cultural groups already have, though that will come in time. Saying this kid slashed a throat because of "Gears Of War" is easier than say picking on what kind of music he listened to, or looking at the kinds of youth culture active in his area. I'd imagine if someone looked at the enviroment, even if it's a "nice" area, they would find that the kids run around talking about busting caps into each other, and there is a lot more kid on kid violence and intimidation than anyone wants to admit to. The big differance here is that in this case the kid doing it caused a major injury, and was also caught.

I'd also look into this for gang affiliation and such as well, since kids get into that kind of stuff early on. Among other things there is a big question as to what they were argueing about on X-box (which could be coded), some 13 year old killing another one over drugs (ie you owe me money for the junk I gave you) is not entirely unheard of. Heck, if the kid is really dumb, he might even be looking forward to doing some prison time to impress his superiors.

 

[Ldude893]

Oh god, the blame game again?
I now have a queued response for anytime someone goes crey-cray and people try to blame something else.
It goes as such.

I freaking love that video. Saw it a year ago, and I still love the batsh#t nature of it.

 

[zidine100]

The reporting officer was of the opinion that the violent videogames played online by the accused may have been a factor in his conduct

thats so unbelievably ambiguous its almost ridiculous.

But i digress i do agree that kids shouldn't have 18+ games,

on a side note your really using the daily mail as a reliable source? Really? lets put it this way there not....

 

[Andy Chalk]

Is it wrong I sort of agree with him on this part? If anything, most parents nowadays have no idea what their kids do with their spare time.

My parents had no idea what I did with my spare time. The more I hear about my parents, the more convinced I am that their parents had no idea what they did in their spare time. It's nothing new; some parents take an interest and make an effort, and some don't, and those who don't quite often end up with children who are shits. Those who do occasionally end up with the same result, but it's an imperfect world. The point is that media may change, but human nature does not.