Police search for motive after gunman kills two and injures 11 at videogame tournament
▶ Politicians call for stricter gun laws as elections loom after gunman and two victims identified as game competitors
Police were yesterday trying to work out why a gunman fired at competitors and the audience at a Florida video game tournament, killing two people and injuring 11 before fatally shooting himself.
The shooting in Jacksonville on Sunday immediately became an issue in Florida primary elections set for today, when voters choose candidates for governor and the House of Representatives.
Some Democrats called for stricter gun laws while other candidates cancelled events.
The office of the Jacksonville Sheriff identified the shooter as David Katz, 24, of Baltimore. It said they found his body near those of his two victims at The Landing, a popular riverside shopping and dining centre.
The shooting began during a regional qualifier for the Madden 19 online football game tournament at the GLHF Game Bar and witnesses said Katz was angry because he lost the tournament. It was not clear if he knew his victims.
The victims were identified as Eli Clayton, 22, of Woodland Hills, California, and Taylor Robertson, 27, of Ballard, West Virginia. Both had been competitors, their families said.
Robertson won the tournament in 2017 and Katz won it the year before, the Miami Herald reported.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s office said nine people were wounded by gunfire and at least two others were injured while fleeing the scene.
Six months ago, 17 students and educators were gunned down at a high school in Florida’s Parkland, an incident that inflamed the long-running debate over gun rights in the US.
In 2016, a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, in the second-deadliest civilian shooting in US history.
Sunday’s attack drew immediate statements from Democratic candidates for governor – former US Representative Gwen Graham and Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine.
“We need to end these mass shootings and the only way to do that is to vote out the politicians complicit in this cycle of death,” Ms Graham tweeted.
Mr Levine said: “It’s time for new leaders.”
The two are hoping to replace Republican Governor Rick Scott, who is challenging Democratic Senator Bill Nelson.
The leading Republican contenders for governor, US Representative Ron DeSantis and state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, cancelled campaign events and urged co-operation with police.
The bar was live-streaming the tournament when the shooting started. In an online video, players react to the shots and there are screams.
Taylor Poindexter and her boyfriend, Marquis Williams, who had travelled from Chicago for the tournament, fled when the shooting began.
Ms Poindexter said she saw the shooter take aim.
“We did see him, two hands on the gun, walking and just popping rounds,” she said. “I was scared for my life and my boyfriend’s.”
Another gamer, Chris McFarland, was taken to hospital after a bullet grazed his head. “I feel fine, just a scratch on my head. Traumatised and devastated,” he wrote on Twitter.
Jacksonville Memorial Hospital was treating three people, a spokesman said. All were in good condition and one was expected to leave later yesterday.
The shooting broke out during a qualifier for the Madden 19 online football game tournament