A London policeman has blamed the recent riots in the city on "violent, crime-related video games." Speaking to the London Evening Standard, the unnamed police constable advised residents in Tottenham to "Go home, get a takeaway and watch anything that happens on TV."
"These are bad people who did this," he continued. "Kids out of control. When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves."
The newspaper reports that the police are looking for "mobs of children" who joined in on the riots across the capital "when parts of the city descended into lawlessness for a second night."
Looting and arson began in Tottenham on Saturday night and spread to several inner-city boroughs. The riot started because police fatally shot a local man (reportedly armed with a replica firearm) on Thursday, according to reports.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said that over 160 arrests had been made so far, and that 16 people have been charged with a number of crimes including burglary and possession of weapons.
Source: PC Advisor
Comments
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
I got the impression a a number of the London Riots started because the police were abusing their Stop & Search powers and using them to harrass black people. Basically, Brixton again.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Well god damn, what game are the cops playing then
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Watching Fox News where they say the riots were started because the police shot someone. Quite a contradiction from Video games made them do it.
- W
edit - Oh yeah, nice of him to bring up a thirty-some year old game. How do you know the person griping is out of touch? For starters they call videogames, 'videos'. For real? Videos?
And two, ask about a very outdated videogames. "What happened to Pong? What happened to Pac-Man?
- W
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
He's right, London has NEVER seen any rioting or public unrest until video games came along. It was all tea and crumpets before 1986.
-Austin from Oregon
Feel free to check out my blog.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Listen "pal". A man was shot, while face down, surrounded with armed cops and laying on the ground. Whether he shot first or not is irrelevant. Whether he was armed with a real, fake or no gun is irrelevant. A man was murdered in cold blood. Yes people will get pissed. And you know who's always happy to join an already unstable protest? Rioters. Anywhere on the planet. The reasons are plenty, but don't come blaming something you can't even tie to the act when you are by any reasonable standard the source of the problem.
Btw, if the gun was a replica, how do you explain your agents swearing they gunned him down because he shot at them and they were protecting their lives? Funny stuff...
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Amazing that you seem to know all the "facts" when no one else does. No one knows whether he was shot in cold blood or not, no one seems to know about his criminal past. The real facts are not yet known.
His death may have been the initial cause for this trouble, but now it's just about people causing violence and trouble and after free TVs.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Hello State. You are right. Witnesses, tapes and even some of the cops testimonies have no credibility. Did I mention your nick does not inspire any sort of trust or legitimacy?
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Sensible people wait for the results of the independent inquiry instead basing events off of rumors (like you have).
If you remember other cases (like Jean-Charles de Mendez), apparent "information" that was released shortly after the event was later found to be false, those were the findings of the independent inquiries.
Don't see the point of your comment about trust or legitimacy.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Video games, the new "it wasn't me"
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
It's oddly comforting that video games can still be blamed for violence in an area that's only 50% white. I guess that's progress. Of a sort.
More telling is that Tottenham is a severely deprived area. It is in the Borough of Haringey, which allegedly has nearly 50% unemployment. (Tottenham certainly has the highest unemployment rate in London.)
More telling still is that the week after the Brixton riots in 1985, there was another riot in Tottenham after a woman died while police searched her home. So this isn't the first time Tottenham has rioted in response to police action: The last time being only five years after Pac-Man was first released. Hmmm.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Unless that constable's name is Jack Thompson, I wouldn't believe this. Even if it is his name, I still wouldn't believe it.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
I highly, HIGHLY doubt that every single participant in the riots had played GTA.
I just get the feeling he wants an easy answer with little to no investigation. This is what all that game blame has brought us, an easy answer they can turn to every time with little to no thought.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
It's highly likely that many of the looters who didn't own GTA beforehand, now own a copy of it and have now got some lovely new TVs to play it on too.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
""Go home, get a takeaway and watch anything that happens on TV.""
So what happens when a kid sees a show like CSI or Law & Order where a cop shoots somebody? Will TV then be to blame instead?
There's a reason this guy is unnamed, otherwise we'd have a mug shot for stupidity.
Re: London Constable Blames GTA For Weekend Riots in City
*** Seriously, it takes balls for this *** to try and pretend that out of the blue, kids playing a game (which had it's last installment release years ago) decided to go out and riot NOW. *** shot and killed a citizen. People got angry and used that as their jumping off point to riot.
AE: Let's dial back on the nasty names and foul language.