![Mass Shooting At Madden Tournament In Florida [Update]](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/27/lgy6jfsmsnsxtumih2ek.jpg?quality=75&w=640&h=360&crop=1)
The outside of GLHF, the game bar in which a mass shooting occurred on Sunday afternoon. (Photo: GLHF Bar, Facebook)
A shooter opened fire today during a Madden NFL 19 tournament at the GLHF Game Bar in Jacksonville, FL. The local news outlet WJXT reports that at least four people are dead, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department is warning people to stay clear of the area.
When reached by Kotaku, police confirmed that the shooting had occurred but were not able to provide more information. As of 2:53pm, the official Twitter account stated that one suspect is dead at the scene.
Multiple fatalities at the scene, many transported. #TheLandingMassShooting https://t.co/qBJvkaO7xT
— Jax Sheriff’s Office (@JSOPIO) August 26, 2018
During a press briefing, Sheriff Mike Williams made some short remarks. Jacksonville Landing, the mall in which GLHF Game Bar is located, has been cleared. There is one suspect deceased at the scene, and there are no outstanding suspects. The deceased suspect is a white male, and the Sheriff’s Office is still working to confirm his identity.
The Sheriff said that more information would be forthcoming in a press briefing with the Mayor later in the evening.
Electronic Arts tweeted a short statement in two parts: “We are aware of an incident at a sanctioned Madden Championship Series competition in Jacksonville. We are working with authorities to gather facts at this stage. This is a horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out to all involved.”
The esports group Complexity Gaming said on Twitter this afternoon that one of its members, Drini Gjoka, had been grazed by a bullet but is now “away from the scene and safe.”
Dubby, another participant in the tournament, also said on Twitter that he was safe. In a follow-up tweet, he clarified that a bullet grazed his head during the shooting and that he is “traumatized and devastated.”
The shooting was captured on the live Twitch stream of the tournament, and you can view that clip here. Warning: the clip is extremely disturbing.
Update: While the investigation is still ongoing, a statement issued by the Jacksonville Sherriff’s office believes – though they cannot confirm – that the suspect was a 24 year-old man named David Katz, from Baltimore, who was in town “for the competition”. The FBI is currently providing investigative and technical assistant, and Federal authorities are currently investigating a home in South Baltimore.
The Sheriff’s office has also confirmed that three people have been killed, with a further 11 injured, nine of them with gunshot wounds. All the wounded are in a stable condition.
Local news outlet News 4 Jax also reported that “Katz, a competitive gamer, won the Madden NFL 17 Bills Championship tournament. He was registered to play in this weekend’s Jacksonville event.”
Update #2:
“I was actually one of the people that beat him…”
GAMER and WITNESS talks about suspected #TheLandingMassShooting shooter David Katz. Says he was acting ‘weird’ all weekend. #BREAKING #Jacksonville #JacksonvilleLanding #JacksonvilleLandingShooting @ActionNewsJax @WOKVNews pic.twitter.com/7ZwqKbMzGM
— Ryan Nelson (@RyanANJax) August 27, 2018
This story is developing and will be updated as we learn more.
Comments
47 responses to “Mass Shooting At Madden Tournament In Florida [Update]”
literally took that shotgun route.
Hows that 2A going for you americans?
How many shootings will it take for america to make changes? What is the breaking point?
The breaking point was when the pre school was attacked. Nothing happened.
People are actually claiming no one died there and the grieving parents are actors.
Point break was ages ago – probably even pre-Columbine. There’s just something pathologically wrong with the US psyche that makes them want to shoot people.
True. They are averaging about 1 school shooting a week now.
Its hard to explain, and will always create argument, but a couple of American friends put it to me this way. At the core of it is an innate distrust of Government, notably Federal control. The Constitution was built around that, laying out peoples rights of protest, protection, etc, with the amendments adding to that over time.
That ends up reinforcing the distrust. Its not a psyche about wanting to shoot people. Plenty of people around the world want to do that. Its the psyche of needing to protect their Constitutional rights,
So because of that innate sense of loyalty to the Constitution, anyone slightly unhinged has access to weapons as a result of that distrust and the Constitution, and its there things unravel.
To someone on the outside, the natural and obvious solution is more thorough background checks when selling guns, more stringent access, that sort of thing. But you’re effectively attacking a holy document, and it ends up coming across as wanting to change one of the Ten Commandments.
Distrust of the government and loyalty to the constitution is just their excuse to play with guns.
I guess most Americans seem to forget you can make additions to the constitution with…oh…I don’t know…amendments. The right to bear arms is itself a friggin amendment!
They’re amendments to the Constitution, by adding to it, not changing the wording of whats there. The first 10 amendments are the significant ones here (well, all 17 have significance) as the Bill of Rights. So many parts of US society are based around those first 10 amendments.
The 10th amendment is probably the clearest example of where I see this stemming from – the Federal Govt possesses only those powers delegated to it by the States or the people.
Those first three words of the Constitution, ‘We, the people‘ establish such a powerful feeling of patriotism and pride, that everything underneath is THEIRS. The peoples. And they’re damn well going to defend it. God bless America, etc etc.
How do you undo something so powerful to the point it can be modernised?
Saying that amendments can only add to the constitution and not change it is incorrect. There’s even examples of it happening in the past.
For instance, the 18th amendment makes it illegal to manufacture or sell alcohol. However, I had no problem buying beer when I visited last time because the 21st amendment repeals those changes.
There’s no constitutional impediment to a new amendment repealing or significantly modifying the 2nd amendment. It’s just that there is no will do to so.
Fair point
Not going to moderation hell for 1 number. 27 amendments in total, not 17.
I’ve always found the “protection from government” argument amusing, especially at the point of technology and such we exist in now.
Good luck using the civilian level weaponry you’ve been permitted to fight a government that could turn you into a fine mist with a drone strike if shit ever actually hit the fan.
That doesn’t make it an invalid argument. When you bear in mind the country has 300 million (or thereabouts) people in it the military and government aren’t going to be able to bring to bear their best tech for everyone. So in the (admittedly unlikely) event that people need to arm up and take on the government something is still better than nothing.
That said, I still believe there’s a middle ground between complete bans and a complete free-for-all. I don’t think our (Australia’s) solution is perfect, but it’s a pretty good compromise.
What skrybe says. The symbolism in the Constitution is what makes it so powerful. They BELIEVE in it so powerfully, and they cant see any alternatives.
We have the same problem though. We don’t see it, but our defence of the gun buyback scheme means we turn a blind eye to a lot of problems with the setup. For both here and the US, the existing setup is so ingrained in our upbringing, that the opposite approach seems so wrong.
I have no issues with out setup here by the way, and its by far the best option I can see around the globe. But there are more guns in Australia now than there were before Port Arthur, so somethings not working as intended.
Its not a perfect system, and needs improving, but you talk about changing our laws and you’d be surprised how quickly people will want to maintain the status quo.
I don’t much care for US or Australian gun laws one way or the other… I have no belief in any particular system. But Americans are kidding themselves if they think their relaxed laws and firearm availability isn’t a glaring contributor to what feels like a monthly mass shooting cycle sometimes.
Instead people stand against changes intended to protect innocent people from being gunned down for simply leaving their homes, and then have the fuckin’ nerve to talk about how they’re sending their thoughts and prayers out to victims of mass shootings… Or yelling about people politicising shootings ‘too soon’ after the fact. So given the fact there’s a shooting basically every month it seems like, there’s never a ‘good’ time to bring up any potential changes.
I think your point about there being more guns now than before Port Arthur is notable, but you have to also note that because of the changes to how you can get a gun, it is massively harder now to get a gun in the wrong hands than it was before.
In the US, there are so many cases of weapons getting into the wrong hands its staggering, where over here there is a lot more oversight at critical points, like buying a weapon in the first place and access to guns ongoing (wether its storage checks or disqualification from holding weapons)
It’s a problem that America is not yet willing or capable of solving. Nothing will change. I got married in Vegas the day after the mass shooting there. We fled for our lives with the crowds and hid in our hotel room responding to messages from concerned family members. The next day it was business as usual, like Begas just reloaded a save when everything was normal.
A shooting AND video games are involved. Can’t wait for the media to ignore the mental health of a guy who thinks its okay to kill people and commit suicide for losing a few games of Madden, ignore the lack of reasonable gun laws, find out this guy played GTA and make it all about video games turning people into killing machines.
They’ve moved onto terrorism/muslims now.
This won’t fit the right-wing media’s scape-goat criteria. They love football. :/
Meanwhile the left-wing media will blame toxic masculinity/GamerGate. This will be highly politicised by both sides.
Nah, the left will blame guns, not realising that if only there were autonomous laser guided miniguns installed (as in Altered Carbon) in the venue this whole situation could be avoided!
‘Merica!
It’s pretty clear what the blame rests on here.
Gridiron.
The news here just mentioned it as When Virtual becomes reality, and they only mention he was a game tournament before shooting people without mentioning what the game was
Thoughts, prayers and more guns. That’s all they need apparently … thoughts and prayers, and more guns. It must be right. The NRA says so, and they’re the keeper of all things rational from the left wing nutters … those crazy folk who just want to live in peace.
It’s called having your cake and shooting it.
I’m sure this would have been different if we armed gun adept shop owners right Trump? Or maybe take a leaf from Helsel’s book and give patrons a bucket of rocks.
I can’t imagine living in constant fear at every event you go to wondering if this is the one where you get shot.
What a tragedy.
And of course, people are politicising it instantly. Almost as grotesque as the shooting.
The topic of gun violence in the US is political and has been for decades. Why something bad happened and how to prevent it happening again is a perfectly natural topic immediately after a tragedy.
It just seems like “oh look, something bad involving guns happened! now I can push my agenda some more” without sparing a single thought to the victims and their families.
don’t get me wrong, I am not a thoughts and prayers guy but seeing that sort of shit (from BOTH sides) disgusts me every time.
This keeps occurring in America and they never want to do something to prevent it because “muh freedums”. If wanting to prevent the loss of life is pushing and agenda now the world is a sorry place.
So when IS a good time to bring up changes to gun laws then?
These days there’s a shooting every other month in the US… So people can never bring up changes to gun laws without someone going “How dare you use this tragedy to push your agenda!”
Exactly this.
We are always told now is not the time to bring up gun laws. Yet when we bring it up later these very same people scream and shout “MUH FREEDUMS 2A!!!”
They aren’t saying that out of respect for the dead, They are using it as a delay and an obfuscation tactic.
not while the bodies are still warm.
now’s good.
What is the American constitution so important, I don’t get it
It guarantees certain basic rights, but the over riding importance to most is how it puts checks and balances on the Government so they don’t screw the people.
Freedom of speech is about the right to protest without penalty, the right to bear arms was meant to be able to defend your property against hostile invasion (at a time the feelings against the British were at their strongest), protections from unreasonable search and seizure, and so forth.
At its core it protects the people from the lawmakers, and given that the people have no direct ability to make law, becomes very powerful as their only real tool of protection. Along the way its built a sense of distrust of Federal control at a societal level.
Recent worship of the constitution seems to ignore the fact it was created by fallible humans operating in a completely different political context than exists today. The constitution isn’t set in stone and the founding fathers never wanted it to be seen that way, yet that’s the argument so many Americans make. It’s ridiculous.
You nailed it… it’s all about Context!
No argument here, but we don’t live inside the Cult of America where its ingrained in their culture from the day they’re born. It might not be set in stone, but to them its so damn close they cant tell the difference. And good luck to anyone that tries to alter it.
I don’t know if it can be undone, and what scares me is that there ARE control laws in place that just don’t do the job. 25m background checks last year, yet 2017 and 2018 have seen 3 of the ten worst shootings since Killeen Texas set a benchmark of 23 in 1991.
8 of the 10 worst shootings have been this decade.
It’s a vicious cycle of fear for them, unfortunately.
Not to mention it was written during a time of muskets, not assault rifles.
Wishing a speedy recovery for those injured.
I know we all perceive and think differently, but I can’t fathom what goes through people’s minds in decisions to harm others.
Americans and their guns, I just don’t get it. If Sandy Hook didn’t bring them to their senses I doubt anything will.
Can they put a number to how many would need to die before they do something about their guns?
1 person could be left alive in the US after every other person in the US is killed by guns, And that last person would still refuse to blame the guns.
The Ironic thing is the most effective way to force gun control is for a well armed militia to march on Washington then the government may act to change the 2a (cant have guns in the hands of people who want to overthrow a government now can we.)
I hate to sound callous, but it’s basically unavoidable, because it’s impossible to care. This is daily life in the US. They knew the risks when they chose to continue living in the country where the right to own a gun is more important than the right to not be murdered. I’m not going to act like this is any more horrific than any of the other thousands of deaths committed by gun-toting psychos that US gun nuts consider an essential part of their culture that happen every year, just because they were gamers.
It wouldn’t be fair to say that nobody in the US cares about their insane gun crime rates because people do, but nobody in power cares enough to do anything, so nothing will change. I will never go to the US because I simply don’t want to die, and anyone who chooses to live there is gambling with their lives. Let’s face it, the only reason anyone not blinded by obsolete patriotic garbage propaganda about it being “the Land of the Free” would want to live in the US is because that’s where they’re hogging all the world’s money.
Maybe that makes me sound like a total asshole. That’s a shame, because I’m really not. But my sympathy towards the US has just run completely dry. I’m very empathic towards people who suffer unfair misfortunes and horrible accidents through no fault of their own, but I have no sympathy for people who suffer as a result of their own stupidity such as Darwin Award winners, and the US is a collectively stupid nation. They bring it on themselves. If you live there and you don’t want to die, then simply get out.
If this was happening on a daily basis in a different country.
The U.S would would call it an eventual threat to them,set up an embassy like the self appointed world police they are, call the civilians terrorists and wage war on them till they got ex CIA politicians installed all in the name of protecting their country.
This country’s heading for a war with itself and are too fucked up to see it.
But hey that’s entertainment…. that part was sarcasm