VIDEO GAME MASSACRE
Madden football tournament loser kills 2 and wounds 12 before shooting self
A gunman opened fire at a video game tournament taking place Sunday at a downtown Jacksonville, Fla., mall, killing two people and injuring 12 others.
Gamer David Katz, identified by the Jacksonville sheriff’s office as the shooter, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The 24-year-old Baltimore native, known as “Bread” and “Ravenschamp,” won the 2017 Madden 17 Bills Championship.
The two dead gamers were identified by Jacksonville TV stations WJAX and WFOX as Eli Clayton, 22, of Woodland Hills, Calif., who played under the name “Trueboy,” and Taylor Robinson, 27, of Ballard, W.Va., who used the name “SplotMePlzzz.”
Police believe Katz stayed at a local hotel Saturday night and have impounded his car. He used “at least one handgun” in the shooting, according to Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Chief Kurtis Wilson.
Wilson declined to identify any motive for the mass shooting. Two people were also injured fleeing the chaos at Jacksonville Landing, an open-air riverfront with bars and stores, Sunday afternoon.
Baltimore police searched a house in their city late Sunday while “assisting our partner law enforcement agencies with some information,” a spokesman told the Baltimore Sun.
Steven (Steveyj) Javaruski, who was competing in the football video game tournament, told the Los Angeles Times that the gunman was another gamer who began shooting after he lost during the tournament, which was being livestreamed. Javaruski, 22, claims the shooter “targeted a few people” before killing himself.
Witnesses also told the Tampa Bay Times that the shooter was mad because he lost during the qualifying event for the Madden 19 Tournament at the GLHF Game Bar, an event that drew professional players from around the world.
On a livestream of the event posted to the website Twitch, multiple gunshots ring out as people scream and the game suddenly stops. One person can be heard asking, “What are you shooting with?”
Police said they were aware of videos of the shooting.
In February 2017, the Buffalo Bills celebrated Katz as the winner of the Madden 17 Bills Championship in a tweet; Katz, seen in the photograph with offensive tackle Cyrus Kouandjio, received a personalized Bills jersey with the words “Madden champ.”
After Sunday’s shooting, six people — one in serious condition — were being treated at University of Florida Health, three others at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital and one at Baptist Medical Center.
CompLexity Gaming, a company sponsoring a player at the event, tweeted that 19-year-old gamer Drini Gjoka, who goes by Young Drini, was “grazed in the hand” before being taken safely away. “The tourney just got shot up,” Gjoka tweeted shortly after 1:30 p.m. “I’m leaving and never coming back.”
The mother of a gamer who goes by Larry Legend also tweeted that her son had been shot three times. Sujeil Lopez told The New York Times that her 25-year-old son had been shot in the nipple, a hand and another area of his body.
“God was with these guys today,” she tweeted with a photo from her son’s hospital bedside.
EA Sports, which manufactures Madden, said they were monitoring the situation.
“This is a horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out to all involved,” the company said in a statement.