Last Sunday morning, a Utah police officer chased a car that blew through stop signs and narrowly missed a pedestrian.  Imagine the pursuing cop’s surprise when the car came to a stop and out popped a 7-year-old boy.

On Thursday, Captain Klint Anderson of the Weber County Sheriff’s Office spoke of the incident to Fox News.  Young Preston Scarbrough told police he had taken the family car because he didn’t want to go to church that morning (he later told his mom he just wanted to give driving a go).

Fox News: “How did he even learn how to [drive]?”

Anderson: “Well, we’re not exactly sure except that his father has grounded him from one of his video games which involves operating vehicles so…”

Fox News: “Something like a Grand Theft Auto, something like that?”

Anderson: “I have no idea.  I didn’t ask the father what game it was but some of those video games are pretty realistic.”

The following day, the Scarbrough family appeared on NBC's Today Show.  Preston’s father, who initially thought the police sirens outside were coming from one of his boy’s video games, confirmed that the little lawbreaker had been grounded for four days with no TV or games.

We’re going to throw away those driving video games for sure.

Preston, for his part, explained how he learned to drive.

Watched my mom. Watched my sister.

Video of the Today Show segment can be seen here and here.

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent Andrew Eisen…

Reason Online has posted a fascinating look at what it calls The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years.

While TIME's investigations into the occult, dirty words and obesity are among the topics making RO's list, we took note of the November 22, 1999 cover which addressed what some parents and teachers saw as a scourge at the time: Pokemon. Reason Online explains:

This Time cover story breathlessly warns that children are printing counterfeit cards, cheating friends and classmates, and even stabbing one another over Pokemon trading disputes. Time doesn’t dwell too long on any substantive data (there isn't any) that might show what sort of sustained violence and mayhem would make Pokemon an “addiction" (Time's word). Instead, it quickly cuts to what the authors see as the real dark heart of the Pokemon phenomenon: crass capitalism! ...

GP: Ten years on, the frenzy over Pokemon seems so silly...

GamePolitics readers will surely recall numerous incidents of the mainstream media getting its undies in a twist over some video game issue or another.

GamesRadar has a roundup of some of the more memorable dust-ups between the game sector and T.V. talking heads.

The Top 7 Hated Habits of the Mainstream Media is worth a look and will probably be familiar to GP readers since some of the source material for the piece originated here.

If preliminary reports are any indication, video games are in for a media beatdown on Canadian TV network CBC tonight.

News program the fifth estate will air an investigative piece on the tragic Brandon Crisp case at 9 P.M. Eastern. GamePolitics readers may recall that 15-year-old Brandon ran away from home following an October, 2008 dispute in which his parents confiscated his Xbox 360.

Brandon was an avid - his parents say addicted - Call of Duty 4 player and the early days of the investigation focused on the theories that he had either run away to join a professional gaming league or been abducted by someone he met on Xbox Live. In the end it turned out that Brandon had fallen from a tree not long after leaving home and died from injuries received in the fall.

The Globe and Mail previews the program:

Some kids get hooked on Guitar Hero, but the vast majority of gamers today spend more money — and time — on shockingly graphic search-and-destroy video games. Turning every violent teen male fantasy into reality, these games have a simple primal theme: kill, and kill again. And then keep killing...

"As a parent, I was shocked by how little I knew about this world," says [reporter Gillian Findlay]. "The violence of these games is so real and beauty of the graphics is almost overwhelming. You can see how seductive these games can be to teenage players..."

In an exclusive interview with Brandon's parents, taped between the time of his disappearance and the discovery of his body, the extent of their son's video-game obsession is revealed.

We're dismayed at what sounds like a cheap media manipulation:

MLG also operates big-ticket tournaments... Findlay sits down with the members of a Canadian team of professional gamers...

 

"When we talked to them, we had large monitors playing video-game footage as background, and you could see it: They couldn't take their eyes off the screens," says Findlay.

Did the reporter really conduct this interview in front of large monitors and then blame some kind of video game effect for the subjects' eyes wandering? Would it have been any different if a hockey game or House was running on those monitors? Maybe that's why most reporters don't conduct interviews with their subjects facing TV screens. They're, you know, distracting...

For those who don't get CBC, the episode will be available on the web at 10 p.m.

Looking for background on the case? GamePolitics covered Brandon's disappearance in great detail. Click here for all of our reports on the case.

GP: Thanks to numerous readers who alerted us to this story...

UPDATE: Steve Tilley, who covers video games for the Toronto Sun, has previewed the show and weighs in with his take:

There's a journalistic responsibility to become as informed as possible on a subject before speaking on it with authority, and [reporter Gillian] Findlay clearly has not.

I'm not talking about forgivable oversimplifications, but rather a glib, faux-concerned approach that treats teenaged gamers like slack-jawed addicts obsessed with virtual mass murder. It's demeaning not only to the majority of gamers for whom this is harmless recreation, but to the non-gaming viewing audience who might not know better...

It's lazy, cheap and disappointingly one-sided.

Omaha's Action News 3 is running an exposé on some Nebraska Library Commission employees who posted a video of themselves setting up and playing Rock Band on company time. But did the workers do anything wrong? From the Action News report:

Were some Nebraska state workers paid to play? A video that appeared on YouTube is creating a firestorm of reaction and suggests so...  Employees at the Nebraska Library Commission are accused of wasting [taxpayer money] and then posting video and pictures of the whole thing on line.

Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley told Action News that a YouTube user spotted the video at left and made a complaint, leading to an investigation by Foley's office. However, Library Commission Director Rob Wagner has backed up his employees:

In a phone interview... Wagner says the workers did nothing wrong. He says the library system is branching out into video games to bring more young people into the libraries. 

GP: While library systems around the country are increasingly adopting video games in an effort to attract teens and stay culturally relevant, that word seems not to have filtered back to either Action News 3 or the Nebraska Auditor General's office.

If libraries are going to offer games like Rock Band, wouldn't it make sense for the employees to at least know how to set them up and be able to explain them to library users?

It's too bad that the local media and the state bureacracy is screwing them over for their efforts at innovation.

Just when you thought the RapeLay mini-scandal was over...

Kevin McCullough, the conservative blogger who in 2008 lit the fuse that would eventually detonate as pop psychologist Cooper Lawrence's misguided attack on Xbox 360 hit Mass Effect, is back.

In a piece for the conservative Townhall blog, McCullough draws similarities between the despicable RapeLay PC game and President Obama's just-signed stimulus package.

You can't make this stuff up. Here's what McCullough, who eventually backed off of his incorrect allegations against Mass Effect, wrote regarding RapeLay and the stimulus package:

This week Amazon.com after many complaints finally decided to ban a virtual reality game called "Rapelay." Defenders of the game say it's not real rape because it only occurs between computer animations. There are no genuine side effects. And it won't impact reality.

Sort of like what liberals sound like when it comes to our money. The money we work increasingly harder to earn. And with one uber-partisan vote they take away. Taken faster than the speed of light or at least in shorter than being allowed to read the legislation that does so.

In the game Rapelay, reviewers have stated that the player must first sexually assault a mother character and her two daughters before being allowed to then "pick" their next series of victims.

In the Congress of Washington DC liberals have seen to it that our mothers and daughters will have less money in the home budget working for their protection and welfare.

In the game Rapelay the reviews indicate that the rapist can even convince one of the animated computer characters that they like what's happening to them.

In Washington DC liberals in Congress sent their lapdog "Mr. President" out to the masses to do the same thing...

 

I've tried to be as tasteful as possible in explaining this comparison, and due to the passion of the natural man that was not an easy thing to do!
 

Class act, that Kevin McCullough...

Via: N'Gai Croal

A man whom prosecutors allege killed his girlfriend's stepsister in a re-enactment of the Mortal Kombat video game series pleaded guilty in a Colorado courtroom yesterday.

The Associated Press reports that 18-year-old Lamar Roberts (left) admitted to charges of child abuse and knowingly/recklessly causing death in the case.

Seven-year-old Zoe Garcia died in December after a night of babysitting at the hands of Roberts and Zoe's stepsister, 16-year-old Heather Trujillo (also at left). Trujillo received a suspended sentence earlier this year and was placed into a program for youthful offenders.

While prosecutors focused on the Mortal Kombat angle, some relatives of the victim questioned that theory. Child welfare reports indicate that Zoe lived in a highly dysfunctional household and that there was at least one prior incident in which Roberts was reportedly abusive toward the child when drinking.

Roberts will be sentenced in January.

The sorry tale of a 16-year-old who shot his parents and then tried to frame his dad for the crime is currently playing out in an Ohio court room.

Rather undeservedly, Halo 3 seems to be playing a central role in the case. Ironically, the youthful accused killer never got  a chance to actually play the game.

As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports, testimony at the trial of Daniel Petric indicates that the boy shot his parents and tried to make it look like a murder-suicide after he was blocked from playing Halo 3 by his father. The elder Petric had confiscated the game from his son as the teen brought it into the house. Mr. Petric then locked it in a box - right next to his 9mm pistol. His son somehow got into the box and recoved the game - and the gun.

From the newspaper's coverage of testimony:

Mark Petric... testified that before the shooting... [Daniel] came into the room with a question:

"Would you guys close your eyes... I have a surprise for you."

Mark Petric said he expected a pleasant surprise. The next thing he knew... He had been shot in the head...

He said the next thing he remembers is his son shoving the gun in his hand and saying, "Hey Dad, here's your gun. Take it."

In his defense Daniel's lawyers argued that the boy was under an emotional strain at the time of the shootings because an illness had kept him housebound for a year. During that time, his lawyers argued, he had little to do but watch TV and play video games.

Could there be additional video game testimony coming up?

British tabloid the Daily Star gets itself worked into a tizzy over an amateur online offering, The Suicide Bomber Game.

The free online game, which can easily be accessed by children, shows graphic images of body parts being splattered across the town. Yesterday, it was branded “sick, callous and upsetting” by the Bali Bombing Victims Group, who want it removed from the internet.

One member, Susanna Miller, who lost her brother Dan in the 2002 attacks which killed 202 people, said: “It’s callous, inappropriate, irresponsible and deeply offensive. I find it disturbing... I appeal to any sites featuring this game to remove it. It’s completely sick."

While Ms. Miller's sentiments are completely understandable, it's cheap journalism to call up someone who lost a relative to a suicide bomb and then ask them how they feel about a suicide bombing game. Apparently, that's how the Daily Star rolls.

Kudos to Conservative MP John Whitting­dale (left) who keeps things in perspective. It would have been very easy for Whittingdale to turn the Daily Sun's question about this obscure little title into a highly-publicized whinge encompassing video games in general. Whittingdale told the tabloid:

I find this game tasteless but I don’t think it will necessarily start turning people into suicide bombers. But those whose lives have been affected by suicide bombings I imagine would find it upsetting.

The star of a Canadian reality TV show has joined in the search for missing Xbox Live gamer Brandon Crisp.

As reported by the Vancouver Sun, Terry Grant, who stars in Mantracker, arrived at the seach location on Friday evening. Barrie Police Dept. spokesman Sgt. Dave Goodbrand commented:

He has followed the story for a number of days and he has come to assist with the volunteer party.

Meanwhile, Simcoe.com has these remarks from Grant:

Search and rescue is what I’ve done for 12 years. I thought it’s a worthwhile cause to come out here and see if I can help organize some of the volunteers and give a little bit of guidance where necessary... This [search operation] is huge. The volunteers who are organizing this are doing an awesome job. They are going above and beyond here.

A Wikipedia entry for the Mantracker program summarizes its format:

Two people take off into the bush with a map, a compass and a head start. The tracker is on horseback, armed with a local guide and an arsenal of forensic skills. The prey have 36 hours to reach a finish line some 40 kilometers away without getting caught. How they escape is up to them.

Brandon is reportedly a fan of the show.