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The Courts Government News Entertainment Games

GTA Blamed for Graffiti 239

Posted by Zonk from the personal-responsibility-is-for-the-birds dept.
Voodoo Extreme is reporting on a group of Greensburg, PA boys who went on a Graffiti spree and then blamed it on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. From the article: "The boys range in age from 12 to 14 and are charged with institutional vandalism, criminal conspiracy, criminal mischief and desecration of venerated objects." Is it just me or, um, should 12 year olds not be playing GTA?
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GTA Blamed for Graffiti More

GTA Blamed for Graffiti

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  • Another blame (Score:5, Funny)

    by Taulin ( 569009 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:34PM (#11210471) Homepage Journal
    The next thing you know people will start blaming the break dancing craze on Electric Boogaloo.

  • Isn't there one? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:40PM (#11210538) Homepage Journal
    Is there one single reporter out there who is also a gamer? If I was a reporter I would go interview the parents. So, you bought this game for your children? Do you rent adult movies for them too?

    New at 10: Parents buy mature and adult video games for their children, then blame the game companies when their kids make mischief.

    • Re:Isn't there one? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Is there one single reporter out there who is also a gamer?

      Yes, but they're all out tagging the local shoppes ;)
    • Reporters commonly write their stories according to their target audience(s).

      Given that parents are probably the main target audience, you don't want to alienate your readership by blaming them for buying an insanely popular game.

      So you blame the game company.

      News media need good bottom lines too, you know.

      • Re:Isn't there one? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by drakaan ( 688386 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @03:01PM (#11211444) Homepage Journal
        How about placing the blame where it belongs: squarely on the shoulders of the young idiots spray painting crap.

        Ask those 12-to-14 year olds "Did you know that spray-painting objects that don't belong to you was wrong?" or "Did you know that spray painting objects that don't belong to you is illegal?" and see how many answer "no". Then slap the ones that answer "no" until they tell the truth and be done with it.

        They were wrong, they damn well knew they were wrong, and they don't want to get into trouble or take responsibility for what they did, so they're blaming somebody else to see if they can slide.

        Pathetic.

        • Re:Isn't there one? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by pipingguy ( 566974 )

          Mind you, some grafitti really are works of impressive art.

          I knew something was up when my 13 year-old son asked for an Xbox, Tony Hawk games and a case of spray paint for Christmas.

          He plays GTA too, but I didn't notice any spontaneous, evil teenager-type impulses yesterday to drag people out of cars and steal their hos. He *did* buy an ICP CD, though, maybe I should worry.
        • And if they played the game at all, they'd have realized that if you spray a tag while a cop is around, you get a wanted star! Wow, I wonder why?

      • BROCKMAN: Now at the risk of being 'unpopular,' this reporter places the blame squarely upon you, the viewer.

    • Is there one single reporter out there who is also a gamer?


      I didn't realize that IGN was for non-gamers, I thought that's what FOX News was for...

  • Stupid is as stupid does (Score:3, Insightful)

    by shade2600 ( 828421 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:41PM (#11210543)
    "Is it just me or, um, should 12 year olds not be playing GTA? "

    Well if the kids are that stupid - what are the chances their parents understand a "mature" rating?

  • Parents Anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shamowfski ( 808477 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:41PM (#11210548)
    No it's not just you. But it's not their fault either. Someone had to pay for the 50 dollar game. Where are their parents. My parents still don't like me playing Grand Theft Auto. Fortunately it's outside of their control. The parents should be out cleaning the graffiti alongside their children.

    • Re:Parents Anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LordEd ( 840443 )
      This type of article also comes up after a kid shooting somebody.

      Why doesn't anybody ask 'where did they get the gun?'

      -- Guns don't kill people, kids who play video games kill people

      • Re:Parents Anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @07:26PM (#11214147) Homepage
        The question should be why didn't the parents teach their child gun safety and responsibility before giving them a gun or having unsecured guns in the house. Many of my relatives had guns when they were teenagers, for hunting and plinking. Their parents made sure that they understood that guns were not toys, how to safely handle firearms, and that they were mature enough to be entrusted with a firearm. None of them ever shot anyone or committed any crimes.

  • What is the penalty? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Red Moose ( 31712 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:45PM (#11210591)
    This is a recurring topic these days - how can kids/minors "blame" something that by law they could not have seen, unless they broke the law. And if they did, shouldn't they be prosecuted for breaking the viewing-18s-material law and not grafitti?

    E.g., if I get syphillis from a hooker, can I sue/blame the hooker and not be arrested for soliciting? Or that is a context argument. If I was 14 and got shitfaced drunk and say shot somebody, could I "blame" alcohol and avoid prosecution?

    So where is this tolerance level coming from? These kids admitted to obtaining and viewing for personal use what for them is illicit material. That's enough for a paedophile webring so why not a bunch of vandals who were too stupid to avboid getting caught?

    • Re:What is the penalty? (Score:5, Informative)

      by eht ( 8912 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:57PM (#11210735)
      In most places there are no loaws regulating age for video games, it's just a suggestion to be used for parent,s likewise movie ratings are not a law based requirments, both are efforts to keep the law out of the industry by self policing.
      • Games fall under the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) jurisdiction in the UK (see eg http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4069887.stm for general info and some comments from Patricia Hewitt; which also gives info on Europe wide classification called PEGI (see http://www.ps2home.co.uk/video_games_age_ratings. h tm)).

        However the video recordings act (1984) goes alongside the BBFC classification and states:

        "It is an offence to supply, or offer to supply, a video recording to any person who has not attain
        • I was being a little American centric with my post when I said most places.

          But since this took place in America that is where I based my statements from.

          As it is some towns and states in the US are attempting to enforce these "recomendations" as law, and these are mentioned whenever they turn up on /. and are usually spoken against here.

          I think parents should be parents (note that I am not a parent) and not expect the state to parent, but at the same time you can't control your child all day every day an
          • Parents can say that they don't want the state to parent, but then the parents should be the ones out cleaning the ditches and being subjected to whatever fines or criminal penalties that their kids are liable for - otherwise the parents obviously DO want the state to parent, because they have reliquished their parental authority to the state.

            Whatever happened to good old beatings? Taught me good ;}
        • The same thing would just alienate already frustrated people in the US... I run the software/games department of one of the local electonics stores where I live and it is part of a large multinational chain, so I have a fairly close view of the matter. We have a corporate policy stating that we can't sell 'M' (their are no real 'AO' rated titles available so they don't bother to mention that rating) games to anyone under 17. Failure to obey this job requirement is terms for being 'let go'. Now that being sa
      • Why isnt' anyone asking what these kids were doing with spray paint? I thought you had to be 18 for spray paint.

        Back when laws used to make sense, they decided not to let kids buy spray paint and glue. Now they want to ban the games?

        This country blows.
    • There is no law saying minors can't see or play mature games or movies. There may be laws in some areas (mostly municipalities at this point) saying that mature games or movies can't be sold or rented to minors, but I don't think those laws really matter since most the time when I see video games being bought for 12 year olds, the person horking up the cash is the parent, not the kid.

  • Who's to Blame? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superstick58 ( 809423 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:48PM (#11210629)
    There is too much finger pointing in situations like this. Everyone always wants to find a scapegoat when the reality is that the blame falls squarely on the perpetrators of the crime.

    It's true that kids can be influenced, but so can everyone. If we want to say that kids cannot be responsible for their actions, fine. Then we must hold the parents responsible. You cannot blame a game that is designed for the 18+ crowd and shouldn't even be sold to minors.

    • Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BoomerSooner ( 308737 )
      Kids spray paint shit. Most stores won't sell spray paint to you if you're under 18 to help mitigate this problem. I had a friend who spray painted his middle school and almost got caught. His parents have always thought he was the golden child, he just never got caught doing anything bad. The funny thing is they always thought I was the "bad influence" when we were kids, the opposite was sometimes true. We were both hell raisers, he just played the "good son" part better.

  • Taking responsibility for our actions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CsiDano ( 807071 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:49PM (#11210645) Journal
    Why do people think they can blame their actions on somthing or someone else? The only thing that made those kids pick up a can of spray paint are their own minds. Even a 12 year old knows graffiti is vandalism and they know it's wrong. Society needs to stop allowing people to scapegoat their actions. We are responsible for the things we do. Were these kids going to jack cars and run people over, maybe grab a flame thrower and torch cars and then get away with it by blaming GTA. Nobody is responsible for their actions anymore, aw jeez McDees made me fat, Smith and Wesson shot my face off while I was cleaning my loaded gun and Jack Daniels made me beat my wife.
  • It's not GTA's fault, but I think it's naive to not realize that the media people are exposed to does influence them. Since it's obvious that corporations have no responsibility nor desire whatsoever to maintain any kind of moral standards which might be detrimental to their profitabilty, it's up to others to mediate the development, encouragement and access to questionable content of this nature.

    The reason GTA is so popular is because people have a secret desire to be anarchistic. The game gives them an

    • Re:News flash: people are impressionable (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @02:13PM (#11210908)
      Sadly, I don't have a reference to give you about this as the moment, but I do remember reading about a psychological study where kids were separated into a group that was allowed to watch violent TV, a group that was only allowed to watch children's education programming, and a group that was not allowed to watch TV at all.

      The study found that kids who watched TV were indeed more aggressive than kids who didn't. They also found that kids who watched Sesame Street were just as aggressive as the violent TV group.

      I don't know if there have been any follow-up studies, but this seems to me to be a very big clue that the problem isn't strictly violence on television, but instead that there's something inherent in the mass media that goes much deeper than violence that is harming people's (or at least children's) socialization.

      Just another of the little tidbits that leads me to believe that the reason why we've separated into two camps - one screaming about violent TV and video games and the other screaming about crappy parents - is that nobody really wants to admit that both of these are just symptoms of the core problem. Namely, our entire crappy, violent culture.
      • The study found that kids who watched TV were indeed more aggressive than kids who didn't.

        What I meant to say is, the study found that kids who watched violent TV were more aggressive than kids who didn't watch TV at all.
      • Yeah, watching Barney the Purple Dinosaur tends to make me a bit violent too...
      • I agree with you, and I also agree that to some degree it's not about the content, but this new way that content is delivered, in bursts of high-intensity sights and sounds that has a short-term effect of getting a consumer's attention quickly, but a long-term affect of turning them ADHD, destroying their ability to focus on things, and making them aggressively reactive to stimuli as opposed to being thoughtful and calculated.

        Children's shows demonstrate these effects most poignantly. Look at Bill Bye the

  • GKU? Gang Kids United?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by CodeWanker ( 534624 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:53PM (#11210693) Journal
    Jesus, what a lame graffiti. They should be locked up for conspiracy to commit weak-assed self-expression.

  • Here's My take... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by databoing ( 259158 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:58PM (#11210741)
    Ok, so graffiti didn't exist before GTA came out? If it didn't or it wasn't a problem, then they might have a case.

    Graffiti has been a problem for decades. To blame it on a game is as ignorant as it is outrageous. I remember when some kid shot up his school and the media was all set to blame that on video games. The problem isn't the games, it's that the world that the games are based on (real-world) sucks.

    Murder happens. Vandalism happens. Playing a game that incorporates this and then going out and doing this stuff doesn't make you any less of a murderer or vandal. These kids will most likely get sentenced as is proper in PA law.

    The GTA angle is just a sad attempt to push a political agenda (far-right tightwads). I'm tired of conservatives thinking they have the right to tell me and whoever else what I should be able to buy. If they had their way, there wouldn't be any games with a hint of violence.

    Where would that leave us? I dunno, puzzle/board/card games, I guess.
    Tetris and Solitaire.

    Yeah.

    Right...
    • The GTA angle is just a sad attempt to push a political agenda (far-right tightwads).

      Far left treehuggers are just as opposed to video game violence if not moreso.

      However, I doubt it's any kind of political agenda. These kids are scared that they got caught, and are trying to avoid getting punished. Remember when you were a kid and got in trouble? Same shit, different day.
    • "Ok, so graffiti didn't exist before GTA came out? If it didn't or it wasn't a problem, then they might have a case."

      I remember Jet Grind Radio for the Dreamcast had similar publicity problems. Anybody remember the "Graffiti is Art" event that the city tried to shut down at the last minute?

    • Re:Here's My take... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jnaujok ( 804613 )
      Since I was the author of the RPG game they tried to blame it on, here's my 2 cents.

      The game is not the problem. The kids are about half the problem. The other half is the parents. These parents care more about watching the latest episode of E.R. then they care about keeping an eye on their kids. So when the kids nag them for a video game, they buy it and never look at it or the kids again.

      There is not a single video game that my (10 year old) son has that I have not played and know the exact content of

      • As the father of a 12 y.o. boy, I'll say you are partially right.

        It is the fault of the parents, but buying or not buying the game has nothing to do with it. My son is a straight A student in a Magnet school, well on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout, and does volunteer projects all the time.

        He and I both also happen to share GTA tips with each other. I have no fear that he is going to start jacking cars and beating up whores any time soon, or ever. On the other hand, I took away his Tony Hawks gam

  • Ah Greensburg (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @02:08PM (#11210844) Journal
    I grew up near Greensburg, they're now putting in the largest Wal-Mart in the world there. Not much to do in the area except go to Westmoreland mall. Kids get quickly bored in that area. I wouldn't say GTA: San Andreas is to blame. I'd say corporate commercialism and liability is.

    If there were places for teenagers to hangout, like skateparks, there would be less influence to go out and do stupid things. Any time a teenager brings a gun, drugs, or hurts himself on your property, you lose your property to lawsuits. So no one caters to making fun places to hang out, its nothing but people's houses and stores out there. Maybe its like that everywhere now.
    • Somehow our generation managed to grow up without skateparks and didn't kill anybody.

      We didn't even have GTA to relieve the boredom. You had to pray your friend from a rich family bought an Atari so you could play Pitfall or something.

      If kids today have a problem, it's not lack of recrational options: It's too much structure in their recreation. Their nights and weekends are jammed with busy little after-school activities. When we were kids, an after-school activity was "go outside." If kids today ca
      • My favorite was playing "Practice locking your bike's back tire while it's directly over a banana peel"

        Not quite like cartoons, but you could get a nice banana trail going.

        Then there were friends who played "Fluorescent light sabers with cardboard boxes over their heads"

        wooommm wooooommmvv vvvwooooomm *CRSSSSHHHHHSHHSHSH!*

        I still laugh my ass off thinking about playing "Ghost ride your crappy bike down a long ramp". Something hilarious about seeing a bike wobble on its own for 10+ seconds, slowly gainin
    • Well while I don't live that far away (closer to Erie) it sounds better than the town I lived in during high school... We had no stores really, no places for kids, nothing much really except houses and bars... Want to guess the percent of kids that started into drugs/alcohol there before finishing high school? ;)
    • Ah, the old "I was bored" defense. There are millions of ways to relieve boredom (99% of them legal) that don't involve damaging or destroying property belonging to others.

      But you had to claim boredom as a possible defense.

      Wow.

  • well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheCarp ( 96830 ) * <sjc.carpanet@net> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @02:15PM (#11210927) Homepage
    could be worst... ever talked with a real graffiti "artist" about their "craft"?

    They would have you think that they are the great revolutionaries, fighting the supression of the individual by putting their tag everywhere and thus destroying the mindless uniformity and attacking the collective subconscious or some such.

    Now admittedly I like some graffiti.... theres some absolutly beautiful peices of artwork that people have illicitly put up in backalleys on walls. Stunning stuff. Of course thats the stuff that doesn't get washed off, because well, it really does make the place look nice.

    If this was what they defended I might be with them, but the vast majority is just a bunch of silly words written in paint marker or scratched into a plexiglass bus window. Crap. Nobody appreciates it but them, it just makes a place look run down and ugly.

    "Yah I am a counterculture revolutionary because I can write a word in really funked up letters that nobody can read"

    At least these kids if they blame it on GTA, probably wont do it again

    Dumbasses.

    -Steve

  • The editor's note for this article is plain stupid (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PinkX ( 607183 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @02:24PM (#11211044) Homepage
    I was playing Mortal Kombat when I was 12 and still I wasn't thinking on ripping people's head apart off on the street.

  • They shouldn't vandalize either (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is it just me or, um, should 12 year olds not be playing GTA?
    12 year olds should not be going on a graffiti blitz spray-painting the initials "GKU" on more than a dozen buildings, including a synagogue, an art museum and a Christian thrift store either. Nevertheless, it seems they did this. Chances are that these kids wouldn't care much if someone told them that they wouldn't be allowed to play a computer game.

    • Oh, OK then (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Changa_MC ( 827317 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @03:37PM (#11211868) Homepage Journal
      I didn't realize that these 12 year olds lived on their own and had jobs where they earned enough money to buy GTA for themselves.

      I just thought they had dumbass parents who don't give a shit about their children and let them play violent video games and run the streets with weapons and spray-paint.

      But now I realize, no one can control these children. At 12, they are so intelligent and powerful that parents are helpless to stop them from doing whatever they want.

      FYI, there's a 12-y-o under my roof who watches nothing pg-13 or above (because he's obnoxious enough as it is, that's way). He also doesn't buy spray-paint.

  • Here we go.

    [ballmer]
    Parenting, Parenting, Parenting, Parenting.
    [/ballmer]

    Plain and simple. If the kids got the game from one of his friends whose parents purchased it for him, then the other parents involved need to get on their case.

    And age doesn't mean a damn thing. I was playing Wolfenstein 3D when I was 12, and for all the screaming and ranting of "concerned" groups, I didn't end up a violent psychotic. You can be mature enough at a young age to grasp such concepts as fantasy and reality without d
  • Blaming GTA for a graffitti is on the same line as blaming Marilyn Manson for the Columbine Massacre... Complete nonsense... If a person is involved in a car accident, are we going to say: "OH, he crashed ... that's because he's arround too many Windows Boxes"??
  • . . . that if these little sociopaths are so unable to control their own behavior that they cannot stop themselves from committing crimes because they played a video game, then there's no hope of rehabilitation.

    Any claim of "some vidoe game/movie/rock song made me do it" should bring automatic commitment to a mental hospital for the criminally insane, with the doctor who signs the release papers being criminally and civilally responsible for whatever they do after they get out.

  • WTF (Score:5, Funny)

    by killbill! ( 154539 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @03:26PM (#11211722) Homepage
    I painted 100 "Grove 4 Life" tags all over the town, now where is my AK 47? :(
  • And can already get a headshot in UT2004. She loves to watch me play Doom3, and as a result has ceased to be afraid of the dark. Granted, part of my duty as a parent was to explain to her in depth that John Carmack is just a mere mortal (let the flaming begin!), and I also used it as an opportunity to show her how many wonderful opportunities there are for her in CG and technology when she gets older. True, I've taken some of the magic out of her childhood, but I also feel that I've given her more of a prag

  • The real influence... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by LordEd ( 840443 )
    is the media.

    How else would the kids know they can deflect blame by blaming something else?

    A proper corrective measure for these kids should be a 48 hour marathon of every 'positive/inspirational' TV and movie in existence (disney, care bears, etc). That way, since they are so easily influenced, we will have happy, sharing, giving, happy members of society as a result.

    THEN they can go to the media and say "its a wonderful life" inspired me to help my community'.

  • Cool... (Score:3, Funny)

    by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @04:31PM (#11212569) Homepage
    So you can spray paint graffiti too in GTA:SA ? What doesn't the game have?
    I've got to get this game when it comes out on PC.
  • I might have been impressionable at 12 but I know that when I was sitting around with my friends playing Mortal Kombat with blood and guts turned on that none of use were having any ideas about doing it in real life. Just because it looked cool didn't make us think it might be okay to do. People who actually think like that are called psychopaths, not children misled by video games.

    This graffiti thing is silly though. Are you going to complain about everything that causes graffiti? I was browsing a graffit
  • Seriously why they didnt just said "the devil made me do it" instead? is just as valid as an excuse and makes just as much sense. Did the church prohibited it or is just not "in" any more, Is gta and MM the new devil and someone forgot to update the holy manuscripts or what?

    Seriously I invite you (and any judge and lawyer) to exchange, "I saw it on a movie/game hear it on a tune" for the Phrase: "The devil made me do it" I wont asure you the same level of success (specially on the media). But I do can as

  • Next, Tony Hawk (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 )
    In the past, I've figured that the things that go on in GTA are so severe that rational kids won't do them. Carjacking, murder... if a kid is involved in these things, they were probably a bad seed from the start.

    But with vandalism...... Well, let's just say that in my old (28) age, I was shocked and appalled by the inclusion of vandalism as a central (read: featured prominently in TV ads) theme of Tony Hawk's Underground 2. Teenagers might have enough sense not to go bust a cap in the ass of some old
  • PLEASE get this into your head.

    GTA is a GAME, it is ment to be played FOR FUN. It's like cops and robbers in the playground. As long as people understand that it's ment to be fun and nothing more then there is no problem.

    It's exactly like nudists for example. Some people see it as sexual and may want to abuse it to get their own way (GTA made me shoot my baby, rob a drug store then hump a lamp post!), where as the real people involved just see it as "What we want to do".

    Everyone "outside the box" doesn't
  • A case of prior art already exists on this one... Rockstar can't claim any rights for the graffitti patent this time.

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