Grand Theft Auto Star Arrested

This will certainly get the anti-games hacks up in arms

Posted by Staff
Excuse me, Mr Liotta...
Excuse me, Mr Liotta...
Ray Liotta, who provides the voice for Tommy in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in La La Land – however, nobody is quite certain just what he was under the influence of. The bad lad crashed his Cadillac Escalade into two parked cars in Los Angeles at the weekend.

According to Reuters, “Liotta, 52, was detained after his sport utility vehicle struck two parked cars near his home in the upscale coastal suburb of Pacific Palisades on Saturday evening, said Los Angeles Police Dept. spokesman Mike Lopez.”

Whether or not arch-anti games campaigners will be able to blame GTA or will have to turn to the movie Goodfellas – in which Liotta played real-life crim, Henry Hill, in a cocaine fuelled drive – is yet to be seen.

Liotta’s news comes shortly after Salt Lake City Police Chief, Chris Burbank, assured the world that 18 year-old Sulejman Talovic - who went berserk with an illegally acquired firearm killing five people at the Trolley Square mall – did not even own a PC let alone a console and was therefore totally unlikely to have been influenced by violent games.

Comments

YenRug 19 Feb 2007 14:24
1/4
Liotta’s news comes shortly after Salt Lake City Police Chief, Chris Burbank, assured the world that 18 year-old Sulejman Talovic - who went berserk with an illegally acquired fireman killing five people at the Trolley Square mall – did not even own a PC let alone a console and was therefore totally unlikely to have been influenced by violent games.


Apparently that didn't stop all round gamer's friend, Jack Thompson, from sending an e-mail to a Salt Lake City newspaper claiming that Talovic was most likely trained on GTA...

Is he going to claim that the Police, like all gamers, are incapable of being truthful about videogames, as well?
TimSpong 19 Feb 2007 17:51
2/4
YenRug wrote:

Apparently that didn't stop all round gamer's friend, Jack Thompson, from sending an e-mail to a Salt Lake City newspaper claiming that Talovic was most likely trained on GTA...


Yes - we were cc'd into it. It was disgraceful.. the paragraph said:

J.Thompson wrote:
'The author of the mall massacre was a young man, apparently in his
twenties>. He was probably a gamer who likely practiced this event on a video game, probably the most popular violent video game franchise in
history--Grand Theft Auto."



YenRug wrote:
Is he going to claim that the Police, like all gamers, are incapable of being truthful about videogames, as well?


Funny you should say that... in other email (this time to the Police department), Mr Thompson says:

says:
J.Thompson wrote:
"There's the bias and there's the agenda-not to delve into what might have provided part of the causation and motive for the killings. Your own personnel have a vested interest in this type of "entertainment."'


'Why didn't we print it?' you ask? Frankly there was nothing newsworthy in ploughing the same old ground.
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PreciousRoi 19 Feb 2007 19:12
3/4
J.Thompson wrote:
"There's the bias and there's the agenda-not to delve into what might have provided part of the causation and motive for the killings. Your own personnel have a vested interest in this type of "entertainment."'


The Salt Lake City PD have a vested interest in what now? Go on, Jerk, grasp at some more straws...

For those of you on the east side of the pond Salt Lake City is home to, and dominated by, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who believe that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County, Missouri (ironically, they were kicked out) and that American Indians were descended from a tribe of Israel, cursed by God with "dark" skin (but conversion to Mormonism made them "delightful" and worked against the curse (they became more whiter, hallelujah), among other things.

Not bad, but no Pastafarianism...

But these are exactly the sort of folks who would love to admit that videogames may have played a part in this senseless tragedy, were the connection able to be made. These are religious conservatives. Unfortunately for Jerk, they are also professional law officers who rely on evidence and facts, not faith, when dealing with serious criminal matters. Jack's attempt to shape this utterly unrelated event for his own use shows him to be the ambulance chaser we all knew him to be.
YenRug 21 Feb 2007 15:56
4/4
Tim Smith wrote:
YenRug wrote:
Is he going to claim that the Police, like all gamers, are incapable of being truthful about videogames, as well?


Funny you should say that... in other email (this time to the Police department), Mr Thompson says:

says:
J.Thompson wrote:
"There's the bias and there's the agenda-not to delve into what might have provided part of the causation and motive for the killings. Your own personnel have a vested interest in this type of "entertainment."'


'Why didn't we print it?' you ask? Frankly there was nothing newsworthy in ploughing the same old ground.


What a great gue... oh. No, it was just Thompson being wholly predictable.....
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