Bangkok Teenager Kills Taxi Driver to See If It's As Easy As In GTA
With the goal of imitating the actions from the popular video game "Grand Theft Auto", a teenager used a knife to stab a taxi driver to death. He now faces capital punishment, i.e. death penalty by lethal injection.
After the incident a Thai distributor of video games decided to stop the sales of "Grand Theft Auto".
Currently Polwat Chino, 18-year-ol high-school student, is in custody. In case the teenager is found guilty of robbing and murdering the 54-year-old taxi driver, he would face death by lethal injection.
According to the police, during the interrogation the teenager did not show any sign of mental illness. Moreover, he confessed of killing and robbing the taxi driver due to video game obsession. It is worth mentioning that Polwat Chino was a fanatical player of "Grand Theft Auto". Nevertheless his parents described the teenager as polite and hard-working.
"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," said Veeravit Pipattanasak, chief police investigator.
Newspapers reported that the youth was arrested after spotted trying to steer a taxi backwards out of one of the streets in Bangkok, having a heavily wounded cab driver in the back seat. In addition, it was reported that the teenager did not intend to kill the driver due to his age, but stabbed him to death after the taxi driver fought back.
"We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games. We are also urging video game arcades to pull the games from service," said Sakchai Chotikachinda, sales and marketing director of New Era Interactive Media.
In the meantime the video game has been criticized for showing beatings, car jacking, drive-by shootings, drunk driving and other scenes of violence.
"This time-bomb has already exploded and the situation could get worse. Today it is a cab driver, but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner," said Ladda Thangsupachai, director of the Cultural Surveillance Centre of the Ministry of Thailand.
Thailand's ministry decided to implement stricter regulation of video games which include scenes of violence. One of the measures that might be taken is the establishment of a rating system on sales and limitation of hours that teenagers can play the video games in public arcades.
In 2005 the developers and marketers of "Grand Theft Auto" faced multi-mullion dollar lawsuit, which was filed in Alabama. The lawsuit claimed that after a youngster played the video game for several months he killed 2 police officers and a 911 dispatcher.
Source: MailonSunday
Powered by www.infoniac.comComments:
- 0 votes
//14 Oct 28, 2008 08:48 PM | posted by:
alphaguy - you know, many kids do feel there is a good side in drunk driving? Its exciting, its fun, of course its wrong, but kids don't always care about that now do they. Haley's just saying it presents drunk driving in a realistic way in which people, teenagers mostly, can learn from. Don't be a wise crack bout it cuz Haley's got a pretty valid point
- 0 votes
//13 Oct 15, 2008 12:51 PM | posted by: Millz - "Um GTA 4 shows drunk driving only in a negative light."
Uhh...there's a positive side to drink-driving? - 0 votes
//12 Aug 28, 2008 01:21 PM | posted by: Haley - Um GTA 4 shows drunk driving only in a negative light. This article is grossly biased. I hate that hysterical way of thinking like "omg! someone who played video games killed someone!! therefore we must ban all video games!!" it's ridiculous.
- 0 votes
//11 Aug 07, 2008 04:17 AM | posted by:
alcotrazz [InfoBIG]
- to Art3Zero
of course it doesn't take a video game for a guy to kill people, but it makes him want to try it in the reality (this is not about everyone though).. imagine, that there's a guy, who knows he's a bit violant and he knows it and he tries to suppress this feeling of violence.. but then, at a moment, he plays sth like the GTA, where they kill everyone around, without a motive (or there is a motive - steal a car )... I think such games just wake up the wilds in us, and the wildest of us go out on the street to try all of the 'game'-stuff for real... - 0 votes
//10 Aug 05, 2008 10:38 PM | posted by: Unknown - That just makes people want to play the game even more.
Thank you freedom of speech. - 0 votes
//9 Aug 05, 2008 12:43 PM | posted by: rich - Wow, what a retard, give him the death penalty, he deservers to die for being such a fucking stupid idiot, one less douche in the world :)
- 0 votes
//8 Aug 05, 2008 12:07 AM | posted by: Andy - If you ban such games you would have to ban Thai soaps as well...
- 0 votes
//7 Aug 04, 2008 10:56 PM | posted by: Edward - Blame the game! If he had killing intentions hes fucked in the head either way.
- 0 votes
//6 Aug 04, 2008 08:16 PM | posted by: Anonymous - How about banning movies or games with guns in it? Since gun-related crimes killed more people than GTA.
- 0 votes
//5 Aug 04, 2008 06:04 PM | posted by: Andrew - This is Bs, i see people get killed on the news, and the killers dont know what GTA is !!!!!!!
I mean i play violent games all the time, My mental Is fine and i dont act like a jackA**.
And it`s the parents duty to make sure they dont buy this kind of game if they are UNDER AGED.
Anyways, if this bs get`s it`s way into canada i will buy 200 copies of the game to make sure i alwas have 1.
The kids was Crazy if you ask me, and the parents are only trying to protect im saying that he is polite and stuff, they say its the game cuz they dont want there baby boy to get Killed. That`s what i think, and that`s what i would do to, to protect my own.
Soo there you have it, why admit being crazy when you can blame it on a Video game, Seems easy, but face it, the juge is gonna give im death penalty, cuz the juge is not stupid, he knows no game will make a kid kill !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Peace - 0 votes
//4 Aug 04, 2008 04:15 PM | posted by: ozm0tik - Whoever thinks it takes a video game to push someone far enough to kill another then they are retarded. Video games don't magically make people psychotic killers.
- 0 votes
//3 Aug 04, 2008 02:22 PM | posted by: Art3Zero - Are you kidding? those Thai are fuckin crazy, around those islands. They are all trannys and love pot.
Whoever wrote this just targeted the gaming industry horribly, and if any sucessful game is taken off the shelf, I will have to give you a beatdown, w/ influence from a video game. - 0 votes
//2 Aug 04, 2008 11:24 AM | posted by:
alcotrazz [InfoBIG]
- "After the incident a Thai distributor of video games decided to stop the sales of "Grand Theft Auto"."
Well, actually, as soon as I saw this game for the fisrt time, I was kinda wondering how come they've let this game into public... and now, here's the first victim! - 0 votes
//1 Aug 04, 2008 11:15 AM | posted by: Mido - Accountability anyone? Common sense?
