Comments on: Murder conviction for teen in 'Halo' case

Daniel Petric, 17, faces up to life in prison for killing his mother and injuring his father after they took away his copy of the Xbox 360 game.

[sythara]

"I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever,"

......

what?

[chamm3r]

My 6 year old knows the difference between dying in real life and dying in a video game. Was this teenager mentally retarded?

Not guilty by reason of insanity is ridiculous anyway. If they are that insane that they don't know they are killing people they are a danger to society and need to be locked away.

[ittesi259]

This was probably in the decision because that was the lawyer's argument for diminished capacity that he thought if he killed his parents they'd probably re-spawn or somethin.

Sorry kid...in World of Warcraft terms your parents are server wide rare spawns that spawn only once....and don't even give good loot....so rofl rofl pwnt nubcake.

[pithenumber]

@chamm3r
amazing how many people do not know that dying is forever

[bluemudkipz]

Of course! If you're addicted to a video game you wouldn't realize that killing someone renders them dead forever and that they'll never come back. Serious mental disorders that can potentially harm others warrant every attempt at said harm.

[someguynamedbob]

0_o
and i though i was addicted

[Xtoo]

That is sad for both the kid and parents.

Ok, this is not a game about magic spells, nor cute mushrooms, or racing, nor puzzles...

You are kicking butt, throwing grenades, picking ammo and weapons, you are a US Marine KILLING aliens!

Must likely he was hooked to online playing where you gather and team with your HALO buddies to online-in-HALO-KILL other HALO buddies

You know exactly what a KILL means, beside he staged the scene as a murder suicide and he does not what DEAD means?

[Dr_Zinj]

Personally, I think Daniel Petric isn't worth the effort.

Since they went with life in prison, they've obviously judged him to be unrehabilitateable.

No question of guilt.

Waste of taxpayers dollars to keep him around.

Take him out back of the courthouse, put a bullet through his head, bury him.

No more problem.

[Migraine]

I agree 100% But I wish the Press and Governments would Please PLEASE! stop blaming video games for what killers do!

I am 46 I have been playing Games since the Atari 2600 came out and have not killed any one yet!

In fact when I have had a bad day I get on my 360 and kill every one I can in GTA4 or COD4 or any number of games I have, as I know I can just turn it off.

Point is I am not a crazed killer ! and video games don't make you one, you had to be one already or brought up that way or some one turned you into one.

[Knightro2]

"I am 46 I have been playing Games since the Atari 2600 came out and have not killed any one yet!"


YET?!?

[johnboy324]

this judge: James Burge, ought to have his own head examined for making a statment like; "...that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever" (did he think they would only be dead for a year, then rise from the dead?#!@

The court systems are soo fouled-up!

Daniel Petric should be hung with his XBOX controller cord. The little byteach doesnt know how to take any displine, send his ass out to Iraq, and face some of the extremists out there.

[Dalkorian]

Maybe this **** thought his parents would just respawn and walk back in through the front door in a few days. It's painfully obvious this kid hasn't got any more brains than that.

Take this kid behind the woodshed and put a bullet in his brain. He's proven to be a waste of flesh and way to stupid to be of any use to anyone. Take his father out there with him, for raising such an obvious idiot.

[Sithembewena]

I firmly believe that the judge himself is mentally unstable.

[thehog2]

I think what the judge meant is, if he killed his parents, there's no reset switch, no "load saved game". Dead is dead.

[Dalkorian]

Well, at least the judge understood that. We think.

[aaroberts]

He murdered his parents over halo3! Halo2 I could understand, but Halo 3? This kid is obviously deranged.

[kris44dad]

It burns my butt every time I see video games get blamed for things like this.

Once again folks.... The video game was not the cause of the problem. The video game was the ESCAPE from whatever other problems he was having with his parents, his life, whatever. So they take away the coping mechanism, and he lashes out.

If you want to stop things like this from happening, stop blaming the symptom and start addressing the causes of why some troubled youths retreat into the solace of video games in the first place.

For any parent reading this that concerned that their child may be at risk for a similar event occurring, here's a suggestion. Try actually playing Halo WITH your kids. You'll actually start some meaningful bonding with them and build a better relationship.

[cantonnais]

Totally agree with this comment. What are the causes for Daniel Petric addiction should be part of the investigation. In his condition, even without a video game, he would have been addicted to something else.

And the other question is why he had access to a handgun? There is absolutely no reason for any sane people to own a gun, unless living in fear. Perhaps that's something to look into... Then again that's widespread in countries like that.

[DigitalFrog]

I also agree here. The game did not cause the mental instability, it merely became a focus for it. If it wasn't Halo and an Xbox, it could have been a skateboard, or motorcycle, or maybe even drugs. The fact that the shooting was premeditated over weeks, and he was thinking enough to try to stage a fake murder-sucicide inidcates he knew full well what he was doing, that it was wrong, and that he wanted to avoid the consequences. If he did not believe that his parents would stay dead once killed, why would he worry about a coverup?

[Dalkorian]

@Cantonnais - amazing. We both agree that video game addiction isn't the problem, but then you twist it around and claim he was addicted to the game and would have been addicted to something else if it weren't for the game. I propose it's impossible to become truly "addicted" to a video game to begin with. "I want to ..." isn't an addiction, it's a desire. A lack of ability to control one's desires isn't an addiction, it's a deficiency in upbringing.

Addiction is when your body becomes dependent on something and reacts badly when it's taken away. Drugs are the prime example (alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, heroin for concrete examples), where withdrawal symptoms can actually be life threatening under certain circumstances. This simply isn't possible with a video game.

As for the "no reason for any sane people to own a gun" comment, I'll just shake my head in disbelief. Maybe my problem is not realizing that you aren't an American. Here we understand basic simple principles like "guns don't kill people, people kill people". If I beat you to death with a baseball bat, have I proven that baseball bats should be outlawed as lethal weapons that no sane person should own? Is baseball a more legitimate sport than hunting? Phrased differently, what does a wild baseball taste like; can you feed it to your family?

[protagonistic]

The insanity plea is just another excuse to blame society instead of requiring people to take responsibility for their actions.

[ChicagoZ]

I pretty much play video games everyday. Whether that's my DS on the bus on the way to work or Halo 3 online when I get home, or a computer game here and there when I'm bored, in some capacity, I game everyday. You could say, I'm addicted...addicted to FUN!

Seriously though, what happened here is a tragedy and video games shouldn't be blamed. Maybe there are underlying problems with Petric and his parents. Maybe there was an abusive relationship, maybe there were passive problems, then again, maybe Petric was driven to violence because of his consistent game playing and violent personality. Out of every gamer in the entire world, there will always be a few who just can't take it and reach the breaking point and ruin somebodies, if not their own life. Before violent video games, it was violence on TV(it still is, but games are taking most of the attack these days), before it was TV it was movies.

This is an isolated incident and is not the norm among gamers. Sure, we may yell and scream and vent our frustration towards the TV, possibly throw a controller or two against the wall, but 99.9999%(repeat forever) will not take out our anger on another human being; except maybe to charlie horse your buddy who just team killed you.

[DaveB1980]

All I've got to say is "welcome to America. The land of scapegoats and no accountability for anything you do."

Seriously. The kid's 17? That means there's a fair chance he's a product of this new generation of no scores in sports games' as not to hurt kids' self esteem, rubberized playgrounds, and parents who will latch onto anything they can to skirt around their lack of parenting. Every time some new case rolls around where they attempt to blame a violent video game for some moron's lack of common sense, I can't help but roll my eyes.

I was 11 or 12 when Street Fighter II came out; I didn't go around trying to karate kick or punch my friends or family. When I was 12 or 13, Mortal Kombat came along; I didn't try to punch their heads off either. And the coup de gras? I was 15 or 16 when I first played DOOM and I certainly didn't attempt to kill my parents if/when they grounded me from playing.

The kid's an idiot and should be locked away... Being shot in the head like someone else suggested would work too. Either way, society would be free of one less idiot.

[inouyde]

Sometimes a kid is just a bad kid, through no fault of the parents, HOWEVER... often times I've found that if a kid has problems at 17-years-old, it's because parents didn't lay down the law when he/she was 17-MONTHS-old.

[iamarcin]

And i bet this kid got the gun legally after a reasonable waiting period.
I would also like to point out
"after what was potentially "weeks" of planning". So

Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty

There is no one to blame other than this kid.
Games for sure don't take away your sense of right and wrong.
Just because he might have gotten his sense of wright and wrong from video games doesn't mean all the rest of us should be punished by limiting our choice to enjoy video games.

I am a gamer. This is a tragedy. **** happens.

[Dalkorian]

by iamarcin January 13, 2009 9:51 AM PST
And i bet this kid got the gun legally after a reasonable waiting period.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 17 years old? I bet he used his dad's gun instead, or stole it from someone.

[xcal78]

I bet OJ said it was all Halo 3's fault too!

[MSSlayer]

Only in America could a kid be this angry and retarded.

[xcal78]

Yea it's only in 1 country in the world! A 30 second search turned up tons of these outside the US.

Video game 'sparked hammer murder'
Thursday, July 29, 2004 Posted: 7:33 AM EDT (1133 GMT)

LONDON, England -- Campaigners are stepping up pressure for a violent video game to be banned after it was blamed for the horrific murder of a 14-year-old British boy by an older friend.

[tubbm]

You are retarded, and so is this kid. There are stupid ******* everywhere. THEY SHOULD ALL BE SHOT!!!!!

[ledhead1962]

The idea that video games are the reason that this individual killed his parents is specious. You could take the stories from years back that cartoons had a like effect on children and change the word cartoon for video game. The incidence of behavior this extreme put against the number people who are using the medium in a sane manner is minute to the point of ridiculousness ( I speak of someone killing their parents not a person who over plays the game to the point of detriment to their own lives- I believe the leap from one to the other is too large to be connected). This is a story of a mentally unbalanced young man any reading of more into it is an attempt of a legal full gainer with 3 twists by the young
man's legal defense. The legal mantra of - I am not guilty. I am a victim - once again rears it's insidious head.

[umbrae]

What people will do and say to get out of being convicted of a crime. I hope he never gets to play a video game again: just as punishment.

[George_Marenco]

Wow that's just sad killing a parent over a video game. The teen should be executed.