In February 2024, a nine-year-old boy was arrested in the US state of Utah for allegedly shooting his father. Details of the crime have now become known, which indicate that the boy could have got the idea for the crime from the video game Call of Duty: Warzone.
This was the original report: On February 20, Fox13Now in Tooele, Utah reported that a 9-year-old was arrested. Police released few details due to the suspect’s young age.
Police were called to a home Friday night where they found a 32-year-old man unconscious and bleeding from a wound to his head. Police reported that the wound looked like a gunshot wound.
The man was taken to hospital, where he later died. All that was released about the man was that he was related to the child.
A spokesman told the press:
“The case is definitely unusual and something we have never really had to deal with before. I know it’s a little frustrating for the public right now.”
The news source reported that there was public debate about whether the gun was accessible to the boy and about the child’s young age.
The murder weapons were a Glock and a tomahawk
This is now known: About a month after the incident, new details emerged.
There were said to be 8 people in the house at the time of the crime, including the victim, his 9-year-old son, two adult roommates and their 4 children.
The father and his son shared a room. The son came out of the room and said: His father was bleeding from the head and was dead.
An investigation revealed that the father was shot in the back of the head. The 32-year-old also had cuts on his head, face, hands and arms that looked like defensive wounds.
A pistol with a bullet missing and a tomahawk-like ax covered in blood were found under the bed.
Son is said to have spent a lot of time on his cell phone and tablet, including Call of Duty
What does this have to do with video games? As Fox13 reports, residents at the home told police that the boy spent a lot of time on his smartphone and tablet, playing video games and watching videos, some of which were not age-appropriate.
When the boy shared videos with other children in the household, he was punished for it.
One of the games the boy is said to have played was Call of Duty: Warzone, a game that uses the same weapons found in the house that were used in the attack on the 32-year-old: a 9mm Glock and a tomahawk.
The report states that the tomahawk strikes occurred after the Glock shot. Such a “particularly cruel and violent” act is unusual for the age of the suspect.
Access to guns may be the key, not video games
We have often reported on MeinMMO about bloody acts that were related to video games. It is noticeable that the stories almost always come from the USA, where access to weapons and the relationship to them is completely different than here in Germany.
There are always discussions about video games when there are outbreaks of violence around the world. French President Macron blamed video games for the May 2023 uprisings.
In Germany, too, the killer game debate was briefly revived in January 2023 after attacks occurred on New Year’s Eve.
However, some studies have actually refuted this narrative a long time ago. It is assumed that video games and gaming can even have a positive effect on children’s reading skills and empathy:
Games make children stupid and violent? New study says the opposite