[ql06] TORT: Grand Theft Auto sued for "role" in death - $246m
- From: "K.K. Campbell -- LAW'06" <2kc16@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 16:04:45 -0400
[Ain't got a hope in hell... But interesting.]
Video game creator sued over killings
CHICAGO - Oct. 23, 2003 — A fatal sniping spree by two teenage Tennessee
stepbrothers, who said they were mimicking the video game Grand Theft
Auto III, has triggered a $246 million (U.S.) damage suit against the
game's creator and others.
A Canadian, whose family is from Windsor, Ont., was killed and a
Virginia woman was seriously wounded by the boys' rifle fire last June.
The suit, filed Monday at Newport, Tenn., names Sony Computer
Entertainment America Inc., Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two
Interactive Software Inc., Wal-Mart Inc., which sold the game, the
parents of the boys and the boys themselves.
Registered nurse Aaron Hamel, 45, was killed and Kimberly Bede, 19, of
Moneta, Va., was wounded in the pelvis when .22-calibre bullets hit
their vehicles June 25, as they passed through the Great Smoky
Mountains.
The suit alleges that the parties being challenged should have known the
game would lead to "copycat violence."
In court in August, Joshua and William Buckner, 14 and 16, respectively,
admitted firing a rifle from a wooded hilltop overlooking the highway
Hamel and Bede were using. They were ordered held until age 19 after
pleading guilty to reckless homicide, aggravated assault and reckless
endangerment.
Hamel's cousin, Denise Deneau of Windsor, was in his truck and injured
when it ran off the road.
The suit was filed on behalf of Hamel's parents John and Rosemary Hamel,
also of Windsor, Deneau and a passenger in the Brede vehicle.
REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
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