Official VA Tech Report: Rampage Killer Not a Player of Violent Games
Official VA Tech Report: Rampage Killer Not a Player of Violent Games
August 30, 2007
The final report of Governor Tim Kaine's Virginia Tech Review Panel has been made public, and video games are NOT identified as a factor in the massacre.Quite the opposite, in fact. The only game cited as being played by Cho is Sonic the Hedgehog. An overall non-involvement with games is detailed by his college roommates.
In Chapter IV, Mental Health History of Seung Hui Cho, video games are mentioned several times, but not as any type of causal factor in the April 16th shootings:
Sun and her parents recall that Cho seemed to be doing better. He was enrolled in a Tae Kwon Do program for awhile, watched TV, and played video games like Sonic the Hedgehog.
None of the video games were war games or had violent themes. He liked basketball and had a collection of figurines and remote controlled cars. Years later when he was in high school, Cho was asked to write about his hobbies and interests. He wrote:
I like to listen to talk shows and alternative stations, and I like action movies…My favorite movie is X-Men, favorite actor is Nicolas Cage, favorite book is Night Over Water, favorite band is U2, favorite sport is basketball, favorite team is Portland Trailblazers, favorite food is pizza, and favorite color is green.
...Cho’s roommate never saw him play video games. He would get movies from the library and watch them on his laptop. The roommate never saw what they were, but they always seemed dark. Cho would listen to and download
heavy metal music...
...Cho went to bed early and got up early, so his roommate just left him alone and gave him his space. The only activities Cho engaged in were studying, sleeping, and downloading music. He never saw him play a video game, which he thought strange since he and most other students play them.
The report will be well-received by the gaming community, which over the past few months has endured supposed video game links to the shootings as espoused by Jack Thompson, Dr.Phil, and the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee.
Comments
And the last sentence supports my point that should be made whenever such tragedies occur. The gamers are the ones getting shot, not the ones shooting.
By the way, although I'm relieved by this final report, I don't like how the term "war game" is being used.
Not a fucking chance.
Sigh.
It pretty much leaves the people who blamed video games with egg on their faces. Unless of course we now need to ban Sonic the Hedgehog... Or it might be the fact that the Virginia Tech Review Panel are in cahoots with Blank Rome, Rockstar, Take Two, the ESRB and the Florida Bar! Damn industry stooges!
"But the New York Times and the Washington Post both said he was an avid agamer. Clearly Gov Tim Kaine and this review panel are in cahoots with the game industry to hide this fact. Hooah!"
I will preemptively quote the Lyndon LaRouche Movement:
"Games are the source of all evil. They even corrupt high profile investigations. Games are a factor and they should not have released this report until they found Cho's hard drive."
These people will not change their stance with the release of this report. They will just accuse them of covering the facts up.
Well, of course. The VATech Review Board is filled with a bunch of avid gamers. I personally know that instead of investigating this, they sat around, smoked some pot (gamers do drugs, remember?), and played GTA while fabricating this story.
Actually, the LaRouches will probably scream that it's a coverup by the US military. That Cho played CS and the government, at the behest of the video game industry, paid off or assissinated anyone who could "prove" that Counter Strike was to blame.
John Bruce might voice a similar opinion, though just barely more sane. He'll just blame the conspiracy on the video game industry and leave out the US government/military conspiracy.
Nightwng200
NW2K Software
JT vs Portland Trailblazers
JT vs Pizza Hut & Dominoes & Papa Johns
Please let me get what I want. Please let me get whaI want . . .
HA HA.
Don't forget:
JT vs All things Green
JT vs Marvel (That would be a cool game by the way ;) )
JT vs Cage
Etc. :)
As for Jack, I imagine he'll do one of three things. (He's that predictable)
1. He'll deny the report and accuse the writers of covering up the 'real' facts.
2. He'll continue to assert that games caused the VTech incident, report be damned.
3. He'll let it go quietly and redouble his efforts on some other incident.
Does that mean model kit otaku are now branded as potential terrorist threats? Methinks the feds will start clamping down on all the Perfect Grade Gundam kits in circulation.
After all, it teaches us how to build a weapons of mass destruction...
He files a lawsuit against Sega for publishing Sonic The Hedgehog.
Oh we can only hope. It would be comedy gold.
He probably also wasn't interested in nascar, tea ceremonies, non-euclidean geometry, or 19th century French literature, but there's no point in mentioning any of that because it had nothing to do with the event.
"Clearly Gov Tim Kaine and this review board have been threatened by Dick Cheney and his army of video game trained soldiers to release this report that obviously covers up the fact that Cho was an avid gamer."
If he can make bullshit up, then so can I. :)
Nascar, tea ceremonies, non-euclidean geometry and 19th century French literature haven't been consistently blamed for violent acts over the course of the past decade.
Looking at your list, though, the only one that I could say for certain hadn't caused violence would be tea ceremonies. They're nice.
Nascar? Any other DC area GP readers take the beltway every day? Violence!
Non-euclidean geometry? Well, maybe that one's just me.
19th century French literature? I defy anyone to read Proust without getting violent. He's just so boring!
Most students play them?
And they're NOT psychotic killers?
Oh, I would totally play JT vs. Marvel!
Wolverine: "BERSERKER BARRAGE!"
JT: "FRRRRRIVOLOUS LAWSUIT ASSAULT!!! SUPER FABRICATED STATISTIC KICK!!!"
{Thirty seconds later}
JT: "DENIAL OF FACT SHIELD! MEDIA MISDIRECTION!" *tags in Leland Yee, goes off-screen to recovery from Humiliation Attack*
Would totally play that game.
It is nice to see JT shown to be an arse. Too bad no one in the mainstream will remember that he blamed Vtech on video games.
Counter-Strike & Va. Tech
A story that appeared on washingtonpost.com yesterday mentioned that the Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung Hui was a fan of the terrorist-vs.-counterterrorist game Counter-Strike.
Small world. Counter-Strike was co-designed by a Virginia Tech student, Jess Cliffe, who graduated in 2003. Cliffe now works as a designer for famous game developer Valve. I spoke to Cliffe once, back in 2001-- back when he was still surprised that anyone had downloaded his game. These days, Counter-Strike is the most popular online PC "shooter" game on the globe.
UPDATE: The Washington Post spoke with people who knew Cho during high school who said Cho played the video game "Counter-Strike" then, but it was unclear whether Cho played the game at Virginia Tech.
I play violent video games. Have been since I was 8 years old. I am an avid hunter. I have access to guns. I listen to heavy metal music...a lot. I was hazed and picked on in school. Never was popular.
I'm everything the "specialists" would say that makes a serial killer rolled into one, peaceful, passive person.
I've had a friend for the past 8 years, and he has never seen me angry. Not once.
So Jack, Dr. Phil, ect. Why am I not a ruthless killer? Why, in fact, am I more peaceful and passive then I probably should be?
I don't know if there is any truth to what JT claims, but he also claimed to have knowledge of hidden blood, nudity, and killing in Bully (with help from a "hardcore gamer"). He has since never come forward with any evidience of this hidden content. My theory is he was duped by a gamer.
Right, there is that link, but the key there is 'violent people.'
People that are already violent may have those feelings exacerbated by the playing of video games. However, given that these people hardly make up a majority of the population, and that they are already violent to begin with, it's illogical to think that video games are the largest causal factor in their tendencies.
Like I've always said, if a person is already out of touch with reality, or unable to distinguish between virtual and real, then yes, video games will only blur the line further. But that's their fault, not the games'.
My weekends are always amusing.
Specifically I wonder if the sense of community and the 'people like him' he might of been able to find in an MMORPG or other online community might have given him enough of an outlet to just be another sad victim of MMORPG-addiction or depression rather than such an explosive rage.
Chances are probably not but the thought is interesting (and I'm not a psychologist or anything).
Now someone HAS to make a lash game of that, or at least some kind of fighter game with JT in it.
It sounds like so much fun.
And risk a frivolous lawsuit from JT himself?!? Oh yeah!
So its Sonic the Hedgehog which is brainwashing the youth of America!
Its time to stop the evil blue menace once and for all! Come on People! We have children to protect!
Game don't kill people, Lunatics who don't know how to channel there anger in healthy ways, Like video games for example, Kill people.
In all seriousness, games are most often used as an outlet for anger and violence, not a way to train for it.
I mean, how absurd does it sound to claim that pointing and clicking a mouse in anyway trains you to handle the breathing, aiming, firing and recoil of an actual weapon.
I know, i worked on a gun range, and lemme tell ya, it's a world apart from playing a game.
Me, I'm gonna go back to blowing up giant robots in Dynasty warriors: Gundam. I"m sure that'll teach me how to pilot a giant, multistory tall armed mechinized weapon right Jack thompson?
Do you why we (right here) are focusing on the video game aspect (or lack of) of V-Tech, or, why critics are focusing on it, or something else?
I am a mast swordsman as I play Maximo, Zelda and countless RPGs. I guess that makes me a master wizard and I can control the elements. I am also a master of Kung-fu and can fly and channel my ki energy into lazer blasts since I play Dragon Ball Z
Now I get why he killed all those people.
I think the problem goes further than that. I think that there are so many violent video games BECAUSE we are a society that worships violence. It makes sense that there would be crossovers between the group called "People who solve problems with violence" and the group called "gamers". Neither of these terms are real as they do not express the people within them, only a trait that we use to identify them.
Yes, it also makes sense that violent people will be energized, for lack of a better word, by violent games. Also, interactive medium or no, I think violent movies and tv have the same effect.
@Chris:
quarter circle forward punch - Nasty letter
ditto kick - Litigation.
And JT wields a ban hammer.
Music, and the movies.
THey can't pin it on video games because Sonic does not wield a gun. Now if it were Shadow the Hedgehog he was playing, Shadow would probably never use a gun again (noting how sensitive Sega of Japan was to complaints about Rouge from -americans- of all people)
This still doesn't actually prove that video games didn't affect him. Since the video games burnt out his frontal lobe years ago, he was forced to linger on in his own madness as his brain was slowly burnt away by the mere presence of video games in the past.
Finally, he couldn't take the pain anymore, and decided to get revenge on all those who had ever played a video game... which was most of the college campus.
Thus... it's all Sega's fault... who is secretly owned by Take Two. and Rockstar. and Microsoft. and also Satan.
Agreed, that all forms of violent media would have an effect. Games are just targeted because they are interactive, and a few people, for some reason, believe that acting through a controller translates to performing similar actions in real life.
Also agreed that there are crossovers between the two labels. But idiots like JT use these labels as if they encompass all of our traits. We aren't people who enjoy a diverse amount of activities yet share one among us all, we are "gamers," and stereotyping us just makes those doing the labelling look like morons.
One word regarding this report: D'uh
Now, off to work.
Sadly, this is not something that public figures really seem to feel compelled to do. If they do, they will release an apology to the tone of Micheal Vick and do their best to not acknowledge that they did anything wrong (referring to the lack of any admission or apology for his direct involvement with the dog fighting & funding).
Maybe I wasn't clear. I remember on the day it happened, I was watching the news. It was only a few hours after the fact and for some reason I see Jack Thompson and others on TV talking about video games! It just seemed surreal, in the middle of this horrible tragedy these people are talking about something so trivial. There were more important things to talk about that day.
*snicker*
Don't you know nothing is more important than the blame game?
"Game don’t kill people, Lunatics who don’t know how to channel there anger in healthy ways, Like video games for example, Kill people."
I want that on a bumper sticker.
@Tristram
JT would be like Dan in the SF games. Attempting to be all flashy and full of bravado, but ultimately he is utterly impotent, and more likely to take himself out with a piece of paper while everyone laughs at him than do anything useful to his own cause.
Hmmm...JT _would_ be the best character to have a super taunt. He really IS Dan!
...it's all sticky, and smells of fear and ignorance!
Face it, you've lost. There's nothing you can do. All you can do is whine on a political game blog about "how we're wrong and you're right" when in reality, no one in the real world with half a brain cares about what you do. You will be forgotten like that German Doctor who tried to blame comic books for the decline of American moral values.
And Dr Phil? He doesn't really agree with you. He only blamed violent videogames for the V-Tech massacre because it's "the cool thing to do."
On a side note, can I borrow your tinfoil hat?
I agree. It reeks of Fake Jack. But if it was the real Jack then I was pretty darn close in my preemptive quote. :)
August 30th, 2007 at 11:12 am
This is the problem with out gamer-friendly society - this report was botched to ensure that gamers and their ill-founded culture will be protected when they are in fact responsible for the built up rage and aggression that is unleashed when a young man decides to shoot up a school.
I’d love to hear all of you apologise to the victims for this atrocity. In a way, you’re all to blame.
Yes, Just like Take2 was at the Center of a vast RICO conspiracy a while back. You Loony NUT
GP: That is a fake Jack post... now deleted.
Don't think JT would have such an obvious typo... he is a lawyer and they are known for being...precise...
There ARE a couple of hints. First, the REAL JT loves to post "HOOAH!" Seconf, he always leaves his name at the end of his reply. Third, Dennis erases the fake JT messages.
We're all to blame for a psychotic, troubled killer.
That. Makes. Sense.
What age are you pushing, Thompson, 50? 60? I'm just trying to get an estimate of how much longer I have to see your ignorant, asinine statements about things you have no grasp on.
He's not the real one. he likes to leave 'attorney' at the end, to show off. one time, he even said 'attorney and you're not' in his name.
Have you ever read his official documents to the Florida Bar and such? They are filled with typos, as are his comments here.
I'd like to see you pull off that defense in a court of law, Mr. Attorney.
How in the hell did you manage to pass the psych evaluation? Did you lie to the doctor?
Oh, and what happened to "moderating" your writing?
im sorry thompson i try to be respectful to others no matter what stupid things they think up, i really do. but you have created a whole new level of stupid. its now to the point where you have made legitimate stupid people look like albert fucking einsteins. just quit now while your ahead. we may spare you out of pure sympathy if you just quit now.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6969842.stm
"This is the problem with out gamer-friendly society - this report was botched to ensure that gamers and their ill-founded culture will be protected"
12 posts after I said I'll bet he claims a coverup...
I hate it when I'm right...
When was he ahead? I don't recall that moment.
Not had the pleasure... I'll keep it that way.
"In a way, you’re all to blame."
Wasn't there a portion of Mr. Thompson's mental evaluation that he would try to stop using hyperbole and would try to moderate his speech?
Oh, that's right. He did:
"I asked Mr. Thompson about the hyperbole and sarcasm that I read in some of his motions/pleadings. He said that he realizes that he may have offended some with his ad hominem writings, and he will be more moderate in his writing style in the future."
No, you stupid, senile, massacre chasing, schister, failure as a lawyer, Christian, and human being YOU and your ilk are to blame. Cho was a troubled young man who was likely harassed by his peers. He needed serious psychiatric help. But fuckers like you stand in the way of them getting such help. You think you can wave around the magical "ban video games" wand and all the problems will go away. But even if all the video games were banned from the face of the earth Cho, Harris, Klebold and others would still need psychiatric care. But no, you have scared, ignorant parents thinking that without games these massacres would never happen, WRONG. Fuck you Mr. Thompson. These kids need help, but all you offer is scapegoating and fearmongering. You are to blame for Virginia Tech, you are to blame for Columbine.
When your geezer heart finally gives out I hope you pack some SPF 1,000,000 Because you are gonna burn in hell.
Can we get a confirmation on whether that Jack Thompson was the real deal or not? I doubt it was because he usually goes by the "JACK THOMPSON, ATTORNEY AND YOU'RE NOT" name. But with him, who knows anymore?
GP: The one that made reference to a "gamer-friendly society" was a fake & is deleted... the one that zings me for "getting it wrong" again is the real Miami Jack.
Do you ever admit that your are wrong? Why do you feel that you must claim conspiracy every single time you are proven full of shit?
hes always been ahead of us. ahead in the be-as-fanatical-and-incompetent-as-you-can-be, race that is.
Gamer friendly society? With jackasses like you running around trying your absolute damndest to squash our freedom to play whatever we like? you really have jumped off the deep end, haven't you Jackie-boy?
“In a way, you’re all to blame.”
Of all the, vitriolic, grossly offensive, and horrendous BILE you've spewed on this website, this is beaten only by the incident where you made fun of a sucidal gamer. To accuse all video game players of a massacre in a blanket statement is not only patentedly ignorant on every level of rational and irrational thought, but is also proof positive that your thought processes are so biased and unstable that you should be banned from ANY form of discussion or debate that requires more than minimal IQ.
If you had accused me of being partly responsible for VTech in person, I would backhand you across the face. How DARE you accuse us for the instability of one fruitcake. I'm willing to bet that if a lawyer went nuts and shot up the local courthouse, no one would DREAM to blame the lawyering profession, which has proven time and again to be filled to capacity with lying snakes like you!
Tad DeMartelaere, hoping to GOD you get disbarred before you actually do something effective.
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/08/30/va-tech-report-rampage-killer-not-a-g...
It's funny that he refuses to admit he's ever wrong. He claimed Bully was a Columbine simulator before it came out and after it came out and was nothing like one, did he admit he was wrong? No, he put a different spin on it saying that he was referring to the bulling going on there even though we know that's not what he meant since he refused to ever blame bulling for the shootings before and focus solely on video games as the problem.
Sorry JT, but dredging up stuff he did 4-5 years ago and hasn't done since... that's just reaching.
You're just mad that they disproved your "his classmates are all LIARS" theory.
"He never saw him play a video game, which he thought strange since he and most other students play them."
1) Video games apparently make you *SANE*, since most of the other students didn't shoot anybody.
"favorite actor is Nicolas Cage"
2) Nicholas Cage makes people kill. I know I wanted to kill someone when I saw the trailer for Ghost Rider, perhaps that was a contributing factor for Cho as well?
Is it wrong for me to feel these "laugh in his face" urges? DO I need to see a doctor? Maybe its just gas 0-o
"ask Dr. Brad Bushman of the Univ. of Michigan, there is a demonstrable long-term effect of violent video game play."
Hey Jacky, Dr. Bushman is the same researcher who conducted a study on the Bible - identical to the study on video games - and guess what? He found the exact same results! So Bushman is credible when he studies video games, but is not credible when he studies the Bible?
Oh, then yeah, I'd have to agree with you on that one.
@Jack
Good for you. And Fox News claims Bush is the greatest President ever, and how may people believe that? Exactly; just because it's on the news or in the paper doesn't make it true.
Here's a dare for you, on a random thought, sue me! Sue me for disagreeing with you, I dare ya :P Maybe losing might help with your problem there, you know, the cranial-rectum insertion you suffer from. It's like those anti-drug things, "Everyone is a victim."
I will apologize for nothing. I assume responsibility for my actions, and my actions alone. Millions of gamers had nothing to do with this shooting, and nothing to do with crime in general. It is reprehensible hold the many culpable for the actions of the criminal few.
It's been said before, so say it once more, the washington post took down the part about cho being a gamer because it had no evidence, and there is still no evidence that he was a gamer.
Not to mention there are still no studies that prove game violence = cause of real violence.
You should realize that the deaths Christianity has caused pale in comparison to the deaths atheists have caused. By way of example, Communism (which of course is aggressively atheist) outdid the crusades and inquisition combined easily, 10 times the deaths in a far smaller the time period.
@Rob
Don't forget the gay sex allegations
GP: real Jack invariably gets stuck in the new spam filter and I haven't yet figured out why... so his posts sit until I can manually clear them. I've encouraged him to register to avoid this delay and to negate the problem with the fakes. However, that apparently make too much sense...
"As the Washington Post reported at the time, Cho was a massive player of Counterstrike"
That's bollocks.
The Washington Post remeoved all references to Counter Strike when it was disproved, and you accused them of a cover up. And you failed to realise they have no ties to anyone in the Games Industry.
(my impersonation of Jacko):
Hey guys, I talked to someone who had something to do with a game Cho used to kind of play 5 years ago who also happened to go to the school where those events took place. That game also is pretty popular, byt the way.
(/impersonation)
I remember reading the book Foundation by Isaac Asmiov, and there was a section that he is reminding me of: Some politician came to the planet full of scientists for some diplomatic meeting, and after a full week when the politicion left they calculated what had actually been said, minus political nice sounding fluff. Nothing had been said. Not a single productive word had been uttered. It sounded nice to those who didn't pick it apart, but it had amounted to nothing.
This is the story of Jack Thompson's entire crusade against video games. It sounds nice to soccer moms, but there's absolutely nothing behind it. His anecdotes are either lies or irrelevant. What a pathetic excuse for a man.
Looks like you need a healthy does of RTFA, Google it if you can't figure it out.
Cho himself wrote about his interests and hobbies in high school and imagine that, no Counterstrike. Not to mention the fact that he apparently didn't really have any friends, in fact, the only specific friend in that chapter of the report is the boy that lived next door when he was 9.
I think I'll take Cho's own words over those that claimed to be his friends.
That is one smart algorithm. Detects bullshit and it's just a bunch of code.
JT is an intellectual masochist
why else would anyone with a sane rational mind return to post after a story that outs their own opinion, even the washington post thing was thrown out and cited as being taken down during his TV interviews.
His entire response can be brushed off in moments and he probably knew this.
What a sad pitiful excuse for a man he is.
Someone definitely got something wrong, but I don't think it was Dennis...
"This is getting monotonous."
Truer words were never spoken.
"The report deals with his gameplay at V-Tech. That’s half the story. As the Washington Post reported at the time, Cho was a massive player of Counterstrike"
Ah, you mean the brief mention of Counterstrike in the Washington Post that was subsequently removed when they realised what the rest of us already knew. Video games had nothing to do with the actions of this disturbed, violent individual.
"as anyone who studies this stuff knows (ask Dr. Brad Bushman of the Univ. of Michigan, there is a demonstrable long-term effect of violent video game play. Nice try, Dennis:"
When asked to clarify the results of the APA study on which Brad Bushman worked, a spokesperson for the APA said:
"To clarify, the APA Resolution on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media stated that there was an increase in aggressive behavior as a result of playing violent video games. The Resolution DID NOT state that there was a direct causal link to an increase in teen violence as a result of playing video games"
http://gamepolitics.com/2006/09/24/regarding-the-controversy-over-monday...
So, according to people who actually do study this stuff, you are wrong.
If indeed there were a demonstrable long term effect on people who play violent video games, why is it not apparent in me? I've played every violent game you have blamed for tragedies for many years and I'm about as peaceful a person as you will meet. Am I simply an exception?
"UPDATE: The Washington Post spoke with people who knew Cho during high school who said Cho played the video game “Counter-Strike” then, but it was unclear whether Cho played the game at Virginia Tech. "
Well, I think it's not unclear anymore. The report found no-one who said he played Counterstrike, or any other videogame at college. He had a computer, so it would have been pretty easy for him to play, but he didn't. If he was obsessed with the game and trained on it, why did he stop laying it years ago?
There have been so many holes poked in the "Videogames cause violence" argument by now it could be used as a fishing net.
It takes a real evil man to hold fast to lies in the face of overpowering truth.
As many said "before they finished the body count."
I think the more accurate saying would be "before the ambulance warmed up."
Where's the real Jack Thompson? I want to rub his nose in this and hit him with a rolled up newspaper. Bad dog. BAD!
look up.