In the US state of Utah, a nine-year-old boy was arrested in February 2024 for allegedly shooting his father. Meanwhile, details of the incident have come to light, suggesting that the boy may have gotten the idea for the incident from the video game Call of Duty: Warzone.
This was the original report: On February 20, Fox13Now reported from Tooele, Utah, that a 9-year-old had been arrested. The police had released only a few details due to the young age of the suspect.
The police were called to a house on Friday night, where they found a 32-year-old man who was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. Officers reported that the wound appeared to be a gunshot injury.
The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died. It was only reported that he was related to the child.
A spokesman told the press:
“This case is definitely unusual and something we have never really had to deal with before. I know it’s somewhat frustrating for the public right now.”
The news source reported that there was public discussion about whether the gun was accessible to the boy and about the young age of the child.
The weapons used were a Glock and a Tomahawk
This has now come to light: About a month after the incident, new details emerged.
At the time of the incident, 8 people were reportedly in the house, including the victim, his 9-year-old son, two adult roommates, and their 4 children.
The father and 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. Additionally, the 32-year-old had cuts on his head, face, hands, and arms that appeared to be defensive wounds.
A gun was found under the bed, missing a bullet, and a Tomahawk-like axe covered in blood was also found.
The son supposedly spent a lot of time on the phone and tablet, including playing Call of Duty
What does this have to do with video games? According to Fox13, residents in the house 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 supposedly played was Call of Duty: Warzone, a game that uses the same weapons that were found in the house and used in the attack on the 32-year-old: a 9mm Glock and a Tomahawk.
The report indicates that the blows with the Tomahawk occurred only after the shot from the Glock. Such a “particularly brutal and violent” act is unusual for the age of the suspect.
Access to weapons may be more crucial than video games
We have often reported on MeinMMO about bloody acts related to video games. It is noticeable that these stories almost always originate from the USA, where access to weapons and the attitude towards them is quite different than in Germany.
There are ongoing discussions about video games every time there are outbreaks of violence worldwide. For instance, France’s President Macron blamed video games for the riots in May 2023.
In Germany, the debate about violent video games was briefly revived in January 2023 after attacks occurred on New Year’s Eve.
However, several studies have long disproven this narrative. It is believed that video games and gaming can even have a positive impact on children’s reading skills and empathy:
Do games make children stupid and violent? A new study says the opposite
