Was German school killer Far Cry2 fan?
p2pnet news view Games | Crime:- Did Tim Kretschmer, the 17-year-old German student who, dressed entirely in black, “walked calmly into three classrooms on Wednesday and gunned down eight teenagers and three women teachers,” post warnings online?
All Kretschmer’s victims were shot in the head at close range,” continues The Independent.
“He later killed three bystanders outside the school before he was cornered by police and turned his gun on himself.”
Police said Kretschmer had posted a warning of his attack on the Net, says the BBC, going on:
“Less than 24 hours after the attack, Wurttemberg’s Interior Minister – Heribert Rech – had read out a message thought to have been posted by Kretschmer. ‘I have weapons here, and I will go to my former school tomorrow and then I will really do a grilling… you will hear of me tomorrow. Remember the place’s name: Winnenden’.”
Kretschmer is said to have posted his warnings on Krautchan, but there, “The final word (hopefully),” says a post in German and English, stating »»»
Thanks for the numerous e-mails. Contrary to my expectations, they included no hate mail at all. The Internet keeps surprising you, just when you think you’ve seen it all. (But I’m sure the spell will be broken the moment I put this online.)
By now, all questions should have been answered. But in case somebody slept through the whole thing, here’s a short summary:
- At 2:45 am, Person A makes a harmless post on Krautchan.
- Person B shoots up a school the next day.
- Person C creates a fake screenshot, using person A’s post as a template, suggesting that person B announced his plans on Krautchan. Person C posts his forgery on Krautchan with the intent of trolling the other users, as is regularly done there.
- Person D finds the screenshot in question on Krautchan and thinks it’s authentic, even though the original post that was obviously used in the creation is still available on the site and looks completely different. Regardless of the fact that Krautchan as a source for any kind of information is as reliable as the MAD magazine, he reports his findings to the police.
- The police takes everything seriously.
- Police and press apparently agree that they should publish first and (maybe) ask questions later. It seems that this is a really urgent matter, even though the perpetrator isn’t among us anymore and the concerned people have enough worries as is.
- The jaws of unsuspecting Bernds drop when they see a high ranking politician read a text full of Krautchan slang on the national news.
- The site is mentioned by name in several reports and soon collapses under the load.
- Efforts are made to explain that it’s just a fake. With communication problems.
- The press and some bloggers are the first to voice doubts.
- However, the police and the aforementioned politician are still totally convinced.
- More explanations are provided.
- Gradually, everybody involved realizes that it’s really a forgery.
- The politician has to revise his statement, however, he thinks that the gross misjudgment of authenticity isn’t really that important, but what really counts is that humor always has to be tasteful.
- The usual debates about what should be done the next time somebody announces a shool shooting on the Internet begin. Even though there hasn’t even been a real announcement.
So basically, everybody can go home now and spend their time on really important things again, like for example the private life of Paris Hilton.
Dressed in black
“More than a dozen threats of violence have been made against German schools since a teenager went on a deadly rampage in the southwewstern town of Winnenden two days ago,” said Times Online.
Most of the threats were quickly dismissed as frivolous but at least two schools have been evacuated and a 20-year-old was arrested in Esslingen, near Winnenden, after threatening on the internet to go on a rampage, it says.
But, “police appear to be treading carefully after announcing yesterday that Tim Kretschmer, the 17-year-old who killed 15 people after launching a shooting spree at his former high school in Winnenden, had warned of the attack in a chatroom message hours before.”
The night before the murders, Kretschmer had been playing Far Cry2, “a game in which the player takes on the role of the killer,” says The Australian, going on »»»
Remarkable parallels emerged between the video game and the 17-year-old’s actions, when he killed 15 people and then himself.
In the game it is essential to hijack cars to move around. Kretschmer did the same, holding a pistol to the terrified driver’s head and asking: “Should I have fun and pick off some more drivers?”
Characters in the game, which is made by the French company Ubisoft and has sold 2.9 million copies worldwide, wear black camouflage uniforms, the clothing Kretschmer wore on Wednesday.
Most sinister of all, Far Cry2’s killer uses a Beretta 92 handgun – the same weapon fired 112 times by Kretschmer.
The game includes sequences in which the aiming, firing and reloading of a Beretta are portrayed in vivid detail. It rewards players who shoot their victims in the head, the style of killing chosen by Kretschmer.
Germany is now second only to the US in terms of the number of deaths resulting from school killings, and is “top of the league in Europe,” says The Independent.
The Independent – In Europe’s league of school shootings, Germany comes top, March 15, 2009
Times Online – German schools plagued by copycat threats after teen massacre, March 13, 2009
The Australian - German killings linked to video game, March 16, 2009
BBC – Was the ‘gunman warning’ a hoax?, March 13, 2009
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March 16th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Neither police nor other authorities have tried to contact Krautchan. Even most of german press failed to do their simple research job. It’s a shame. Simple solutions spread around, no matter if true or false. People, who don’t know anything about computers and internet again are about to take action against computergames and web-sites – seeing a cause in deadly behaviour of this and potential other assassins. In germany, we have a long discussion about “killer-games” – led by analog farts whose newest technological invention was a colour tv.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I’d like to point out some errors in the description of Far Cry 2 (proving that blaming a video game is a bunch of BS):
-”In the game it is essential to hijack cars to move around. Kretschmer did the same, holding a pistol to the terrified driver’s head”
You never hijack cars in this way in this game (must be mixed up with GTAIV). In fact, you hardly ever hijack cars. Usually cars pull up, and the driver gets out and starts shooting you, so you have to shoot back… there’s plenty of cars to steal without killing people.
-”Characters in the game… wear black camouflage uniforms…”
Not a whole lot of them do. And if your talking about playable characters, none do.
I hate when people try to blame video games and get facts wrong. I think that in order to blame a video game, you must play through it first.
March 16th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I’ve played Fry Cry 2 often enough. There’s not just a pistol for a weapon. What you want? Mortar, grenade, sniper weapons, semi-autos, how about a flame thrower? More than one pistol two. My fav seems to be the silenced one.
None of the supposed violent games have me feeling bulletproof, have me feeling like going postal, or in any other way doing damage to others. IT’S A VIDEO GAME. It’s not life. It has a reset button. If you can’t tell a video game isn’t life, you’re problems are more than just the video game.
If those do gooders that want to control the sale of video games really want to get on the bandwagon behind something that might help, how about a qualified place to take school children to see if maybe they have more stresses than they can deal with in real life? Shutting down the video games won’t take away the problem even if no more were sold today. Notice that not everyone around you that plays video games is going postal. It’s only a minor few…very minor.
This is one of the same arguments that I really have a problem with in the anti-abortion crowd. They assume that saving a life counted for whatever gold stars they get on their soul. Where are they during the time the child is going up, not having enough money for food, clothing, and the necessities of life? I’m not going to go into this other than this one statement, it’s another loaded gun with people and strong feelings about it.
There are many misstatements about Far Cry 2 that have already been pointed out. Remarkable parallels? What’s remarkable? If I get a cop game that solves crimes as the game theme, is it remarkable that it resembles some cops’ life? I mean come on here, how far do you stretch it? I’m sure Jack Thomson would have a field day with it but then Fla has already put Jack on the “no listen” list and he appears to have had to go to Utah to get heard.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Blame the Douche, not the game. All this crap reminds me of the pre video game(not including pong here) days, when some dick head went on a rampage or did some heinous crime they would blame “violent tv”, most of which then got banned and replaced by sitcoms in the U.S during the late 70’s and early to mid 80’s. If you weren’t a fan of sitcoms and actually liked the violent cop shows, this was a DREADFUL period of TV. So thanks but NO thanks, I’m gonna pass on the “Friends” video game.
March 17th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Hijacking cars in Far Cry 2??
LMFAO! That’s right, you’ve NEVER EVEN PLAYED THE GAME.
September 9th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Thats B.S if you can mastake real life for a game the your not mentaly stable. IT’S NOT THE GAMES GET OF OUR BACK!!!! Blame it on something else. First it was TV, Clothing, Now games……. NO. Plus if they do band all M games, what will they have nothing… no about 1 or 2 million give or take rioting kids… THINK BEFORE YOU DO..