VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY GOES ON TRIAL OVER COP KILLINGS BY TEEN
Video Game Industry To Go on Trial in Alabama/ Implicated in Cop Killings by Teen Trained on Grand Theft Auto Game!
A trial court in Fayette, Alabama, has just entered an historic order denying ALL motions to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of two police officers and a police dispatcher against Sony, Take-Two/Rockstar, Wal-Mart, and GameStop. The teen killer literally trained on the Grand Theft Auto games to kill them.
This lawsuit made headlines around the world when it was filed in February 2005, as it was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes in March and July 2005 and in the August 2005 Reader’s Digest. This is the first time such a lawsuit has scored such a success.
Plaintiffs are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from the corporate defendants, and the way is now clear for plaintiffs to wade through defendants’ files regarding what they knew and when they knew it about the danger to public safety posed by these murder simulation games. The case will be tried to a jury in Fayette, Alabama. Alabama leads the nation in the size of verdicts against corporate defendants.
Before the triple homicide in Alabama, Take-Two/Rockstar Games, the makers of the Grand Theft Auto games, had been warned, in writing, by Miami attorney Jack Thompson that murders such as those in Alabama would occur by teens who had rehearsed the murders on their virtual reality killing simulators. Thompson will likely be a witness in the case. Take-Two/Rockstar chose to ignore these warnings, which paves the way for huge punitive damages.
Miami attorney Jack Thompson, is conducting Talk Show interviews on this topic. During your interview with Attorney Thompson, he can discuss how he is scheduled to be assisting plaintiffs’ counsel during the discovery process and in the courtroom at trial. Jack brought a similar action in April 1999 arising out of the killing of three students in Paducah, Kentucky, by 14-year-old Michael Carneal. That case was ahead of its time. It’s time has now come, particularly in light of overwhelming law enforcement, medical, and scientific evidence that there is a known and direct link between violent video games and teen violence.
The industry has known of this causal link for years and yet it has continued to market and sell, through reckless retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Circuit City, and GameStop these Mature-rated murder simulators to children. Thompson’s own son, 13, was able to walk into Best Buy this month and buy the most violent game being sold.
One of the purposes of the Alabama case, which is expected to be tried in 2006, is to stop the sale of these games to kids, which is in fact the law in Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Take-Two’s CEO, Paul Eibeler, was last week voted by MarketWatch “America’s Worst CEO.” Take-Two’s NASDAQ stock has plummeted on his scandalous watch.
JOIN THE “FUN”: VIRTUAL VIOLENT SEX WITH PROSTITUTES, THEN MURDERING THEM AND MASSACRING COPS
Latest Generation Video Games for Children This Christmas!
How do kids join in the above interactive “fun?”
Easy: Just let them walk into major retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy where they can buy, even if they’re under 17, the latest generation of violent and sexually- themed video games on store shelves now—but hurry; they’re going fast—really fast.
Granted, it is only virtual violent sex and murder—but try telling that to your autonomic nervous system that has no way of distinguishing it from the real thing. Sooooo, we’re breeding a whole new generation of (virtual) serial killers.
But if Consumer Advocate/Author JACK THOMPSON has his way, laws will be passed to keep these sexual and violent video games out of the hands of kids.
Conducting Talk Show interviews denouncing the violent video game industry, Jack Thompson gives real life stories and statistics on the extreme danger of these violent video games, based upon brain scan research coming from Harvard and elsewhere.
He was seen twice this year on CBS’s 60 Minutes on the topic of his Alabama case in which a teen gamer killed two cops and a dispatcher. He also was featured in the August 2005 Reader’s Digest.
Thompson, a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, where he was a classmate of former Vice President Al Gore, shares with your audience how violent videos have a brain-altering effect that can lead to deadly results. During your interview, Thompson also gives anecdotes from his new book, Out of Harm’s Way (Nov. 2005 Release from Tyndale House Publishers).
In Out of Harm’s Way, Thompson puts the powerful video gaming industry in his cross hairs. Pointing to medical, scientific, and law enforcement evidence, the author shows how unhealthy and dangerous this popular interactive “entertainment” has become—and how violent video games have been linked to the increase in school shootings and other teen violence. Lest the video gaming industry think Thompson is not capable of opposing their powerful stranglehold on the entertainment business, his history strongly suggests otherwise.
In Thompson’s engrossing memoir—an account of a modern-day David’s battle against the Goliath entertainment business, there is a much needed call to arms. Writing as one who has been at the front lines of the culture war for the past two decades, often standing right in the line of fire, Thompson explains the moral, legal, ethical, and racial implications of this battle and why it is vital that parents—and anyone else concerned about the health, safety, and well-being of children—understand it—and join the battle to stop violent video games—dead in their tracks.
VIDEO GAMES TARGETED BY JACK THOMPSON:
All the Grand Theft Auto games
The Warriors
Halo 2
Blitz: The League (Jack was on Anderson Cooper 360 about this game)
Brothers in Arms
Earned in Blood 50 Cent
Bulletproof True Crime
New York City Bully (not yet out)
25 to Life (not yet out)
In addition to discussing video games, Jack Thompson also talks about his successful battle to oust Howard Stern from the terrestrial airwaves
HOWARD STERN’S WORST NIGHTMARE: JACK THOMPSON
Howard Stern’s new talk show is set to debut Jan. 9, 2006 on Sirius Satellite Radio. Many credit Jack Thompson as the man, more responsible than any other, for having Stern bounced off of terrestrial radio. But for some reason, Jack Thompson, activist and lawyer, is the “bad guy”. It is he who is the “lunatic.” It is he, just to keep his law license in Florida, who was forced to be tested by psychologists to be deemed “certifiably sane.” While he says he wouldn’t wish his unlikely, not-always-likeable hero status on anyone, Thompson’s relentless fight to clean up the entertainment industry has some of the mightiest media Goliaths on the run.
“This Lunatic Lawyer in Miami” – Howard Stern
Last year, Thompson took on shock jock Howard Stern and sent him packing for satellite radio. The author’s legal complaint to the FCC resulted in the agency fining Clear Channel $495,000. Ultimately, Clear Channel decided to pull Stern from the air. Stern’s subsequent flight to satellite radio was triggered by Thompson’s continued guerrilla tactics.
2 Live Crew Suit
It was Thompson, in 1989, who had the courage to face 2 Live Crew in court and win the first-ever verdict labeling a sound recording as obscene. He made the argument that “Parental Advisory” stickers placed on the album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, did not adequately warn listeners of what was inside the case. Thompson met with Florida Governor Bob Martinez and convinced him to see if it met the legal classification of “obscene.”
Oliver North’s Freedom Alliance
In 1992, Thompson represented Oliver North’s Freedom Alliance at the annual Time Warner shareholders’ meeting, regarding rapper Ice T’s song Cop Killer. He argued that should the song lead listeners to kill police officers that widows should be able to sue Time Warner over the content of the record. Time Warner subsequently pulled the song from store shelves worldwide.
Columbine Shootings
After learning about the deadly effects of violent video games on adolescents, Thompson predicted on NBC’s Today that a Columbine-line event would happen very soon. The Columbine event took place less than a month later.
An absorbing memoir of an improbable hero, Out of Harm’s Way chronicles Jack Thompson’s spiritual, intellectual, and moral journey to becoming one of America’s most visible opponents of violence and obscenity in entertainment.
A graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, where he was a classmate of Al Gore, Jack Thompson is a former “hands-off-business libertarian” and “First Amendment absolutist” who subsequently became convinced that the entertainment industry must be forced into taking responsibility for the brain-altering and deadly results of the violence and indecency it is spewing into millions of homes, families, and minds. An attorney specializing in litigation against the entertainment industry since 1987, he has been interviewed for hundreds of radio and TV programs about the link between violent video games and teen violence. A frequent speaker on college campuses, Thompson lives with his family in Florida, where he is a lay leader in his Presbyterian church.
ABOUT JACK THOMPSON…
A 1976 graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, where he was a classmate of Al Gore, Jack Thompson is a former “hands-off-business libertarian” and “First Amendment absolutist” who subsequently became convinced that the entertainment industry must be forced into taking responsibility for the brain-altering and deadly results of the violence and indecency it is spewing into millions of homes, families, and minds.
An attorney specializing in litigation against the entertainment industry since 1987, he has been interviewed for hundreds of radio and TV programs about the link between violent video games and teen violence. His legal successes include: securing the first FCC decency fines (1989); securing the first verdict that a sound recording is obscene (2 Live Crew case in 1990); forced Time Warner to pull rapper Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” from store shelves worldwide (1992); and received ACLU’s “Top Ten Censors of the Year Award” (1992).
Recently, Thompson has represented parents of three girls shot at a school in Paducah, Ky., by a 14-year-old video gamer. He also got shock jock Howard Stern kicked off all Clear Channel radio stations and Clear Channel fined $495,000 for illegal indecent broadcasts. He also successfully predicted a “Columbine-type” incident on national television one week before it occurred, and he also predicted that the DC Beltway Sniper triggerman would be “trained on a sniper video game.”
A frequent speaker on college campuses, Thompson lives with his family in south Florida where he is a lay leader in his Presbyterian church.
Suggested Interview Questions for Jack Thompson, author of “Out of Harm’s Way”:
Jack on Video Games:
* Do you really believe violent games lead to violence? What proof do you have?
* Can video games really permanently alter a persons brain?
* Isn’t this really just a parent’s responsibility, not the government’s?
* Are you opposed to all video games or just some?
* Give an example of how violent video games actually caused violent behavior?
* What is the solution to the play of so many violent games by kids?
* Are violent games really being sold to minors?
* Didn’t you play cops and robbers as a kid?
* Are all violent games bad or just some?
* Do you think we’re going to see more laws against the sales of violent games?
* Is this a Republican issue or a Democratic issue?
* Aren’t Republicans supposed to oppose more government regulating our lives?
* Where should regulation end? Isn’t this the slippery slope of censorship?
* What are some video game companies you believe are acting irresponsibly?
* With the holiday buying season upon us, what games should parents buy for kids?
Jack on Howard Stern:
* What is the problem with Howard Stern doing what he does on the air?
* Is keeping Stern on the air just about the money?
* Has the FCC singled out Howard Stern? Are they picking on him unfairly?
* How will Stern do on satellite radio?
* What will Stern be doing 10 years from now?
* Isn’t it a parent’s responsibility to keep his/her child away from Stern’s program?
* Doesn’t the 1st Amendment protect free speech on the public airwaves?
* Aren’t you putting us on a “slippery slope” of censorship? Where does it end?
* What would you like to have happen to Howard Stern?
* Has Howard Stern really affected America in any fashion, for good or ill?