‘No one deserves to die over playing a video game’
Marquis Williams and Taylor Poindexter at first thought they heard a balloon popping. When the loud bangs kept coming, the Chicago couple and fellow video gamers attending a weekend tournament recognised them as gunfire and began scrambling for an exit.
As he fled, Williams, 28, said, he could see the back of the gunman’s head as the attacker appeared to be walking backward as he fired.
“We didn’t see like a face,” Poindexter, 26, told reporters a few hours after the attack, standing on crutches after spraining her ankle trying to escape. “We did see him with two hands on a gun, walking back just popping rounds.”
The couple said people trampled others in the panic to escape. They ran to a nearby restaurant, where workers were waving people inside, and hid in a bathroom until police arrived.
The competition was held in a gaming bar that shares space with a pizzeria. Viewers could watch the games online and see the players.
“No one deserves to die over playing a video game, you know?” said “Madden” competitor Derek Jones, 30, of Santa Fe, New Mexico. “We’re just out here trying to win some money for our families and stuff.”
Jones said he was sitting in a back patio outside the tournament venue when he heard the gunshots Sunday. He jumped a fence and ran, leaving behind his backpack and cell phone.
“You know, I’m glad I lost today,” Jones said. “Because if I’d won, I would have been in that game bar right then playing a game and not paying attention. And he could have come and I’d probably be dead right now.”
Jones said he knew Katz by the gamer tags he used online — often “Bread” or “Sliced Bread” — and had played against him online but had never spoken to him personally.
Jason Lake, the founder and CEO of compLexity, a company that owns professional esports teams, said on Twitter that one of his players, 19-year-old Drini Gjoka, was shot in the thumb.
Gjoka tweeted: “The tourney just got shot up. Im leaving and never coming back.” Then: “I am literally so lucky. The bullet hit my thumb. Worst day of my life.”
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump had been briefed on the attack and the White House was monitoring the situation.
The Jacksonville Landing, in the heart of the city’s downtown, also hosts concerts and other entertainment. It was the site of a Trump rally in 2015, early in his campaign for the White House.
Marquis Williams said the shooting rampage was another tragic sign that elected officials should take action to curb gun violence.
“Politicians, wake up because the people you’re supposed to be representing are dying,” Williams said. “Quit sitting on your butts. Quit collecting cheques and do something.”