February 18, 2008 -
The Northern Illinois University campus is still reeling from Thursday's rampage shooting by an apparently deranged 27-year-old man.But that hasn't stopped anti-game violence activist Jack Thompson from threatening NIU with a lawsuit. Over video games.
Thompson e-mailed GamePolitics a copy of a letter that he faxed this morning to the university's public safety department in Dekalb:
Pursuant to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request production of copies of all documents that reveal Steven Kazmierczak’s play of violent video games, including but not limited to the use of his computer to play Counter-Strike, which he apparently, according to the New York Post, used to rehearse for his Valentine’s Day Massacre at NIU.
The killers in the two worst school massacres in history—in Erfurt, Germanay, and at Virginia Tech University—similarly trained on Counter-Strike to rehearse for their killing sprees.
If I am not provided with this information, I shall bring a civil action to secure these documents.
GP: Frankly, I had difficulty believing that anyone would waste the time of busy investigators and intrude into the NIU community's period of mourning over something as trivial as the video game habits of a grown man. For that reason, I asked Thompson to verify that he had actually sent the fax to the university. His response:
Of course I sent it to them, you idiot.
The NIU investigators have already responded, professionally, and told me they will get me this information in due time. This is how you do this, which you wouldn't know.
I can't vouch for Thompson's version of the NIU staff's response.
Comments
http://www.destructoid.com/thompson-gamers-don-t-care-about-dead-people-...
We would easily pin the blame on religion or lack of videogames
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
stop feeding the trolls people.
dont' you get it that JT will use the worst comments here to demonize us? Like take WarOtter's post. he'd say that he's beign targeted by you putting up his address.
stop just posting meaningless curses and insults. I understand how much you hate Jack Thompson, but posting those opinions here, where he obviously trolls aroudn even without posting means your just giving him ways to demonize gamers and not helping the situation. instead rant on your own site, where JT obviously won't go. Sure it's not public, but ranting here just lets him try to make us into something we aren't.
as you may be aware of already, Anonymous is currently focusing on dismantling Scientology, but keep an eye out for the video messages on YouTube.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23204875/
As well as that, read the linked correspondence between him and MechaMonkey. The man is actually starting to become inexcusable.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
So let this be a lesson to all you gamers out there. If you are going to commit mass murder, don’t use a gun. Use high explosives and claim you learned it from Hamas and CNN. "
Everyone knows you can use explosives in CS.
I'm utterly happy I don't live in the country of backwards-striding =P
I posted a quote a few days ago that said that Thompson should be ashamed of himself, that Northern Illinois' pain is not his commodity, and that when NIU students go back to school changed forever, he's going to chasing the next massacre that he helped create like the vulture he is, only instead of picking the remains of a rancid armadillo off a lonely Texas highway, he preys on the living.
That stain on the underwear of life Jack Thompson can go to hell.
"I hereby request production of copies of all documents that reveal Steven Kazmierczak’s play of violent video games"
(blink). You want documents that show him playing violent video games? (blink). Who, in hell's bathroom thinks that Il-U actually tracks that? You think it shows up on his transcript? Think maybe it shows up on his report card? Counterstrike, A+?
I'll bet Il-U has no idea what he played, least not in documentation. Sheesh. Maybe the word "Counterstrike" on a cocktail napkin. Anyone else besides me get the feeling that Jack-o tried to get his mental health records and they told him to shove it. So now, he's picking on the college?
Also, in a slightly more evil turn. Last I'd heard. There were 5 people dead. Ever notice how lightly people use the term massacre these days? 5 dead happens in a really bad traffic accident, people don't call it a massacre then. You want to see some bad stuff, hop over to Wikipedia and look up the massacre at Nanking. That's a massacre. This is just a tragedy.
That said, I think I would have more respect for all of this if Jack-o would at least wait long enough for the survivors and their families to have a mourning/grieving period before he started in with the games-made-him-do-it!
He reminds me of my old university roommate who was a mean underhanded and aggressive hermit, couldn't make friends and was out and out malicious towards me because I was more successful than him (I found first year fairly easy, and spent a lot of time slacking off, where his fervent studying generally earned him mid 70s). In the end he tried to get me kicked out but ended up moving out, and a lot of people thought I should be angry at him, but I just felt sad. His life will be a serious of unfulfilling, self induced hardships and I doubt he'll ever be really happy. How can we be mad at Jack Thompson? The poor man.
FOIA it. :)
This act is shameless, sure, but it's been foreshadowed by a previous lawsuit that targeted the chief of police in one county. Thompson demanded that the police look into a criminial's history of video games. This latest attempt is deja-vu. But then again every single JT does now is very deja-vu.
Seems like that other anon is trying to call in a personal army attack. It's not necessary. JT doesn't have the clout that the Co$ has. JT's lies haven't killed anyone or taken their money. JT is a mildly annoying ambulance chaser and he's dug a fine enough grave for himself without Anonymous needing to get involved.
That is all.
Game Over.
If documents such as those do exist, my guess is there will be very very few. Seriously, why would the college keep record of his video gaming habits? Wouldn't that be an invasion of privacy? And if not why would the college choose to risk a court battle just to find out his video gaming style?
If Jack really wants to learn about his habits wouldn't it make so much more sense to simply ask his roommates?
Perhaps there's the fact that he couldn't threaten his room mates with BS legal action if they didn't comply.
We can only guess.
There are connections between meta-cognitive abilities and actual performance. Those with greater meta-cognitive abilities tend to be more successful in their cognitive endeavors. And this meta-cognitive factor often ties in with intelligence and ignorance. In other words, a student who generally does poorly in a subject is more than likely to elevate his expectations more than the student that does better. There are essays online which explain experiments about this in detail. Jack Thompson seems to fall into the extreme example, if he were to participate in such an experiment.
Massacre, IMO does not have anything to do with the number of people killed. Rather it is the nature of the event, someone walking into a classroom and unloading, whether he kills 1, 2, 5, 50, or 100 people is committing a MASSCRE.
Nanking, Rwanda, Somalia, Darfur, are something beyond a massacre, or a far more serious massacre.
The truth is crazy people exist and all we can do is try to limit the harm they do to society.
If only these mass shooters would go out with a real purpose and do society a favor by not only offing themselves but taking a low life or two with them, rather than the innocents they tend to take.
THIS.
Seriously, I know everyone has said it, but I'm going to say it again.
1. Why would the school have records of what computer games he played?
2. It is entirely inappropriate for Jack to interrupt their period of mourning to chase an ambulance through a disaster. I detect no shared mourning, no grief for what has occurred. I see a little man who wants to get back at the world for his own stupidity. How this man still has a law license is beyond me.
True, but even in the supposition that video games made him kill 5 people, we have to weigh in the returns of investment. Is it worth taxpayers' money to make college campuses more secure if it means cutting down on a fraction of percentage of deaths? Life may be considered priceless but in reality you can't put an infinite investment on everyone.
This, IMO, is a bigger problem than scapegoating of video games. It's the lawmakers and politicians' inability to measure the returns of investment for a proposed law. It's why Jack Thompson wants to spend millions of dollars to shut down a company. It's why Bush wants to spend billions of dollars on a Patriot Act, that at the most will make us 1% less likely to be bombarded by foreign enemies.
I wouldn't really joke about that if I were you.
He's one nut in a whole slew of people, just like the shooters (only not nearly as bad)
"“…it is declared to be the public policy of the State of Illinois that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government […] Such access is necessary to enable the people to fulfill their duties of discussing public issues fully and freely, making informed political judgments and monitoring government to ensure that it is being conducted in the public interest.” (5 ILCS 140/1)
"Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act is intended to open the government to all citizens by guaranteeing access to governmental records in whatever form they are maintained. The Act maintains a clear preference for access to public documents while still protecting legitimate governmental interests and the privacy rights of individual citizens. The Office of the Attorney General is committed to the free exchange of information and to that end publishes a Guide to the Freedom of Information Act intended to help Illinoisans navigate their way through the Act.
"The principal mandate of the Act is found in subsection 3(a), which provides that "[e]ach public body shall make available to any person for inspection or copying all public records." The remainder of the Act implements this requirement."
[note: links to full & related documents at http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/government/foia_illinois.html "
Sooo...how does this relate to the personal activities of a non-governmental entity?
...a class act all the way.
Look at the VT incident. Look how many people JT convinced that violent videogames did it even though they actually didn't. In that retrospect, he WON.
We ARE fighting a losing battle.
There is one thing ruining my enjoyment of that article. MSNBC is part of the Microsoft empire. Microsoft publishes Counter-Strike for the Xbox. What are the chances of Jack suggesting biased reporting?
I understand completly.
thompson is a lesser evil to CO$.
Anonymous will prevail.
you only have two jobs
1 make shure that your head is a dick
2 make shure its attached to your neck
GP could you please send that to him for me
he calls you an idiot ill call him a dick head
No he didn’t! For all his wild accusations, they went nowhere. The review panel’s findings made him a liar. I haven’t been able to find anyone else who believes it. The only person Jack has managed to convince is himself.
The question one should really be asking is, which his license in danger, why would he run the risk of doing the very same things that got him in trouble in the first place? My theory is that he is so convinced of his “crusade” that he thought this incident was important enough risk his career. This was kind of borne out by his “Paul Revere” statement. We know he sees himself as some sort of town crier, always “beating his drum loudly in the public square.”
It also clearly shows his martyr complex, as he probably thinks if he loses his license, it will be worth it so long as he can further his message. He’ll probably be very disappointed then when he’s disbarred when he finds he’ll have nothing to show for it.
Reminds me of a cretin net.kook, who even appears on the FOIA wiki....
Not like this is the first time Jack Thompson the massacre chaser made such demands, and ended up COMPLETELY WRONG.
If I am not provided with this information, I shall bring a civil action to secure these documents.
Speaking of "civil," legal threats and demanding them to pursue your personal agenda soon after such a tragic even sure isn't... And considering the previous cases where he pulled "they must have destroyed the evidence!!!" excuse, is he going to repeatedly use the FOIA like that same kook?
The NIU investigators have already responded, professionally, and told me they will get me this information in due time. This is how you do this, which you wouldn’t know.
Ah, he got the standard "whatever you say you jerk, we'll humor you for now, and give you the same information we give all the others" form-letter response.
And I have just realized something, what if such games only made up %10 or less of the ones he played? I have the GTA games and some FPSes, but the amount of them I have only fall into that same percent. A good amount of my gaming cash & time is into RPGs and puzzle games, which people like Jack WILL DELIBERATELY IGNORE! To them the existent of one big name FPS and/or GTA = the cause of all our problems and what should be 100% focused on..
Let's be mature now
@ DarrelBT
We are not fighting a losing battle. I doubt anybody listened to Thompson. Games are not going downhill, the industry is increasing day by day. All these anti-gamers on tv and such only dent the industry a little bit.
Given that, though, this heavy-handedness on the part of JT, I have to wonder if it might work against him in the way that the RIAA's litigation campaign has worked against it. There may be potential gains in finding a game link here, but JT's habit of showing up and crying about games before the bodies are cold may just piss off a lot of people. Media companies that don't agree with his stance won't air him anyway, and those that do agree with him aren't really helping the cause by putting such an unsympathetic face on the anti-game movement.
You all keep telling my I'm wrong to suggest lawsuits against the man, yet here he is threatening to sue a school to promote his own fucking crusade. I saw turnabout is fair play The ESA and ECA should put this dirt bag in the poor house with some serious legal action.
This guy was 27 YEARS OLD Thompson, what is YOUR solution? Ban video games? Ban movies? Ban everything that could have had ANYTHING remotley to make this guy deranged?
I love these conservatives, "guns are not the problem its TV, it's games, it's music". They make good entertainment value. Almost like mental health is not an isssue.
Jack, this guy like most other people that participated in this stuff, they would have done it anyways, provided they have access to the weapons. This guy was recently medicated and was not taking his medication, did you even pay attention to that Jack?
Even if there is a connection that these nutbags play video games, we are talking a total of 20 of MILLIONS of players. They play games, listen to music, watch TV, goto school and/or work, eat, pay their bills.
The only differences are
1) they would either bare an anger and/or grudge against society and/or their victims
2) They are not mentally stable so they either lack the ability to determine between right and wrong and/or lack any morality.
People kill eachother every day over religion, you dont see anyone proposing, your bible is a much bigger motivation to kill than Grand Theft Auto (it also justifys violence for purley stupid reasons). But we dont see anyone banning bibles (outside strict Muslim nations) dont we?
This shit happens because some people are either born or become this way due to social or mental reasons, we cant stop it.. all we can do is try to reduce the times this happens, notice the signs and get people mental help and (sorry conservatives but you brought this on yourself) but making it difficult to aquire firearms will go a LONG way.
In Australia we dont have a "right to bare arms" in our consitution, it is very difficult to aquire firearms. And yet do you hear about school shootings here? Gun laws were tightened after the Port Auther Massacare and you know what? It woked!
It prevents those that should never own a firearm to begin with not be able to get their hands on them.
Even if (which I dont buy) games are a factor in mass shootings. Eventually you have a deranged man, with a gun with his hand. THOSE are the problems
I'd just save the energy you use for typing, man.
All he'd see from that post is: "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah I hate Jesus and children"
More like he does read them all in full, but cherry picks them, and the few he does respond to he deliberatively ignores parts-of/all-of them.
The truth in my comments must have got to him, he replied to one part of it and ignored all the points I brought up/asked him.
And the one part he replied to, far as I remember, was with something along the lines of "LOL, I R SMARTE, UR NOT"...