Rex Baaum died on the streets, a victim of brutal attacks by three American teenagers in 2004. Nathan Moore (aged 15) and his friends Luis Oyola (16) and Andrew Ihrcke (17) savagely beat, and murdered the homeless man for no particular reason at all.

The press has found a pretty good reason for the murder though, video gaming. Ihrcke told the police when they were arrested that the event reminded him of a “violent video game”. Clearly, the press jumped on this as the cause of what happened that day. The media all over the world is obsessed with blaming things for murders; most usually it’s focused on music, Hollywood as well as independent cinema and video games. The way I see it, it is much easier and less stressful for the families involved for the media to place the blame on an external entity that no one had any control over, than blaming the parents themselves. Gabe of Penny Arcade did just that three days ago, stressing the fact that parents are most usually to blame for their children’s faults and that the problem usually lies in lack of communication. Yesterday though, Gabe posted an email sent to him in response from one of the parents of said ‘young adults’ describing the criminal nature of the teenager and how nothing they did made him fee bad for what he had done.

As I write this, my teeth are clenched, my hands are shaking, and my whole body is seething with the hatred I feel for this kid and what he has done. Seeing the article brings back all the horrible memories from when he lived with us.

He was constantly in trouble in school, with the cops, with us, with his mother, and with anyone else who was an authority figure. Not a week went by that the school or the cops wouldn’t call us for something. His attitude was basically “fuck you, I don’t have to listen to you” said with a shrug.

And later on in the letter she goes on to say,

I can’t stand hearing about the so-called correlation between games and real-life violence. Video games DID NOT make this kid who he was, and it’s unfortunate that the correlation is there.

The thing that really gets me with this whole thing is that the kid knows full well that by equating what he’s done to a video game, that he will generate controversy and media coverage. It makes me sick that the media is jumping all over this, because that is exactly the result that he wants.

I can only sigh in disbelief that anyone could be so disconnected from a conscience and not have any remorse for doing such a terrible thing, and then trying to cover up their pure evil by attempting to stir up controversy. I’m not bitter that he’s blaming video games or anything; the fact is I felt it necessary to point out the media’s obsession to blame anything they possibly can for things that happen. This young man has clearly used the sensationalist attributes of the media as an excuse for his entirely evil actions.

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