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Posted by: kwflatbed

Lawyer partly blames video game for killing of three in Ala. police station
By JAY REEVES
Associated Press Writer

FAYETTE, Ala.- Lawyers for a 20-year-old accused of fatally shooting three members of a small-town police department claim the video game "Grand Theft Auto" and childhood abuse caused him to kill.


Devin Moore is charged with capital murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. The jury heard closing arguments Tuesday and began deliberations.

Defense lawyers have partly blamed Moore's actions on the hours he spent playing video games from the "Grand Theft Auto" series, in which players shoot police officers and steal cars.

While the judge barred jurors from hearing testimony linking the 2003 shootings to the game, defense lawyer Jim Standridge reminded them that Moore, after his arrest, told police "Life is a video game; everybody has to die sometime."

Moore had pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental defect.

Prosecutor Lyn Durham said Tuesday that Moore knew what he was doing when he grabbed a patrolman's gun and killed two officers and a radio dispatcher.

"And he knew it was wrong," she said.

Officers had taken Moore to police headquarters for booking on a stolen auto charge. Authorities said Moore, who was 18 at the time, grabbed one of the officer's guns and fatally shot all three victims in the head before fleeing in a patrol car.

The victims' families have filed a civil suit against the video game manufacturer and two stores, claiming Moore killed the three after repeatedly playing "Grand Theft Auto III" and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City." No trial date has been set in the civil lawsuit.

A spokesman for Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., parent company of "Grand Theft Auto" manufacturer Rockstar Games, did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment.





Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Posted by: frapmpd24

Can anybody realize these days that responsibility lies with indivuals that think with their brains and commit criminal acts by their own free will. Along with funeral expenses familes must immediately think of how to link their relatives death to some computer game, TV show, song, manufacterer, producer, writer, inventor, etc, who has millions more than the sh*tbag that committed the crime. It is not good enough anymore to send the a-hole away for life (or death in some states), people must get a cash windfall to boot.

If someone stabs a person with a pen, the abulance chacing lawyer or greedy family members will be quick to file suit against the "Bic" company because if they did not make pens sharp to write with their relative would not have died or been injured. Ofcourse it is the family member who they have not talked with in years and did not like to begin with, but yet are in such emotional distress that they cannot work, live, eat, or function, and need 24.9 million dollars because of a 99 cent pen. Its not the prodcucts that are killing people, it is the morons that are on trial. All these frivalous law suits drive me nuts.

End Rant (phew)

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Posted by: Dan H

Sometimes I just think "accountability" has too many syllables for some people to teach to their children.
ac·counta·bili·ty ........ is that when a number is easy to count to??

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Posted by: SOT

Hey I played Ms. Packman for years, you didn't see me running around the streets in lipstick and a bow, eating dots off the road and going down on ghotsts named Blinky.

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Posted by: CJIS



Better yet

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Posted by: mpd61

I agree 100%

Thank God that Congress had the cajones and common sense to pass legislation blocking gun manufacturers from frivolous "wrongful death" lawsuits relative to third party violence.

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Posted by: BartA1

defenses based on mental defects are usually ineffective and result in a quicker guilty verdict. Hopefully that will be the case here and this piece of work can get on with his lifetime stint or if there is any justice a trip to death row Individual Responsibility keeps disappearing from maintstream society.

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