An 18-year old in Thailand, now under police custody, was arrested the other day after stabbing and murdering a cab driver. Authorities say that the teen personally admitted his actions were carried out in order to mimic events depicted in Grand Theft Auto IV.
This news comes to us from Reuters.
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The 18-year-old high school student, now in custody pending further investigations and a trial, faces death by lethal injection if found guilty of robbing and killing a 54-year-old taxi driver with a knife at the weekend. Police said the youth, an obsessive player of the video game, showed no sign of mental problems during questioning and had confessed to committing the crime explicitly because of the game.
"He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game," chief investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak told Reuters.
The youth, described by his parents as polite and diligent, was arrested late on Saturday after he was found trying to steer a cab backwards out of a Bangkok street with the severely wounded driver in the back seat, newspapers reported.
The suspect told police he did not mean to kill the driver, whom he had chosen as a possible victim because of his age, but that he stabbed him to death when he fought back, newspapers reported.
"Grand Theft Auto", now available in its fourth edition, has been criticized for depicting violence including beatings, carjackings, drive-by shootings, drunk driving and prostitution.
A senior official at Thailand's Culture Ministry said the murder was a wake-up call for authorities to tackle the issue of violent video games, and urged parents to pay closer attention to what their children played.
"This time-bomb has already exploded and the situation could get worse," Ladda Thangsupachai, director of the ministry's Cultural Surveillance Centre, told Reuters. "Today it is a cab driver, but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner."
The ministry has been pushing for tougher regulation of video games such as Grand Theft Auto, including the imposition of a rating system on sales and restriction on hours that youngsters can play the games in public arcades.
It's certainly unfortunate that such an event has taken place. Our deepest sympathies go out to the family and friends of the victim."He said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game," chief investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak told Reuters.
The youth, described by his parents as polite and diligent, was arrested late on Saturday after he was found trying to steer a cab backwards out of a Bangkok street with the severely wounded driver in the back seat, newspapers reported.
The suspect told police he did not mean to kill the driver, whom he had chosen as a possible victim because of his age, but that he stabbed him to death when he fought back, newspapers reported.
"Grand Theft Auto", now available in its fourth edition, has been criticized for depicting violence including beatings, carjackings, drive-by shootings, drunk driving and prostitution.
A senior official at Thailand's Culture Ministry said the murder was a wake-up call for authorities to tackle the issue of violent video games, and urged parents to pay closer attention to what their children played.
"This time-bomb has already exploded and the situation could get worse," Ladda Thangsupachai, director of the ministry's Cultural Surveillance Centre, told Reuters. "Today it is a cab driver, but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner."
The ministry has been pushing for tougher regulation of video games such as Grand Theft Auto, including the imposition of a rating system on sales and restriction on hours that youngsters can play the games in public arcades.
This news comes to us from Reuters.
Please discuss this thread further here.
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