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Patrolman Arnold Strickland eased his cruiser to a stop in the parking lot outside the darkened Triangle Grill. Just a few yards away sat a white Toyota sedan. When a quick check of the plates confirmed that it was the same vehicle reported stolen earlier that night, Strickland stepped out of his car, edged cautiously to the side of the Toyota, and peered in. Sure enough, there was the suspect, sleeping soundly.It was just after 3 a.m. on June 7, 2003, when the deputy rousted 18-year-old Devin Moore from the car, cuffed him and drove him to the police station nearby. Residents of Fayette, Alabama, a peaceful town of 5,000 nestled in the undulating hill country north of Tuscaloosa, say it's the kind of place where everyone knows one another's business -- and Officer Strickland certainly knew of Devin Moore. The boy had played for the local high school football team before he moved back to his mother's place up the highway in Jasper. He had a reputation for having a chip on his shoulder, but Strickland wasn't overly concerned. Moore had never been in serious trouble -- no criminal record, no documented problems with drugs -- and the teen insisted he had bought the car for $500 from a guy who was dating his mom.
Given that Moore had been found in a hot car, however, Strickland charged him with receiving stolen property and warned him that he might end up doing time. That got the young man to thinking -- and planning. Moore waited more than an hour as Strickland booked him, and Cpl. James Crump, Strickland's backup that night, made a print of one of the boy's white sneakers in case it matched the shoe print found where the car was taken. Then Moore made his move. He snatched Strickland's .40-caliber Glock, intending to handcuff the patrolman to Crump and then escape. "But after I got his pistol, he started screaming and I freaked out," Moore later said. "I don't know how many times I shot him, but I shot until he fell to the floor."
Moore next stepped into the hallway and, in a blur of astonishing precision, gunned down Crump as he emerged from an evidence room. He then hustled to the dispatcher's office where Leslie "Ace" Mealer, the only other police employee in the building, sat cornered at his desk. Mealer gasped in disbelief as Moore raised the Glock once again. In less than one minute, Moore's bloody rampage was over, and three skilled lawmen lay dead.
If those acts of grisly violence had been a video game, Moore would have lit up the scoreboard. He should know. He'd played the game before. In the months before the shootings, he had sat for untold hours in front of a video monitor stealing cars, mowing down pedestrians, pummeling prostitutes until pools of blood gathered beneath them and, finally, slaughtering police officers. The game: Grand Theft Auto, reportedly played by 71 percent of American teenage boys.
A few decades ago, in the days of Pong and Pac-Man, video games were innocuous novelties. That is clearly no longer the case, and what was once idle fun has become more and more a cause for concern. Complex and increasingly realistic video games, whether played in a carnival fun house or on the Inter-net at home, have become an integral part of many people's daily lives -- sometimes addictively so, especially for children.
Child psychologists report treating kids who have become so thoroughly mesmerized that there is little else that matters to them. Their grades fall, they quit playing sports, and they stop hanging with their buddies. In the very worst cases, say some therapists, they do what Moore did: Aping skills they learned on video consoles, they become violent.
"It's a cop-killing game," Jack Thompson, a Miami attorney and vocal critic of violent video games, says of Grand Theft Auto. "Moore killed cops. He replicated the killing scenario in the police station precisely as it occurs in the game."
That claim will play a pivotal role in what may become the first-ever successful attempt to place restrictions on the burgeoning video entertainment industry by holding game makers accountable for the actions of their most misdirected players.
Earlier this year, on behalf of relatives of each of Devin Moore's three victims, Thompson filed a $600 million civil suit against Moore and the entire chain that makes, distributes or sells Grand Theft Auto. That includes Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., and Rockstar Games; the Sony Corp. of America, which manufactures the game console; and retailers Wal-Mart and Gamestop, where Moore bought Grand Theft Auto.
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