Seventeen year old Warren LeBlanc murdered a 14-year old boy, Stefan Pakeerah, allegedly because he was inspired by the grisly computer game Manhunt, with which he was "obsessed." The victim's parents called the game "a manual for murder", demanded the game be withdrawn and all violent games be "banned", and also threatened to sue the developer Sony, the press dubbed the murderer "the PlayStation killer" and a number of UK retailers actually pulled the game from its shelves, even as it sold out rapidly elsewhere (to journalists?).
That was the media scare yesterday.
However, the media and the Pakeerahs had misunderstood one crucial detail. The game, which you must be 18 to buy in Britain, was found not in the room of the killer, but in the room of his young victim.
"The video game was not found in Warren LeBlanc's room, it was found in Stefan Pakeerah's room," a police spokesperson said today. "Leicestershire Constabulary stands by its response that police investigations did not uncover any connections to the video game, the motive for the incident was robbery."
Police believe LeBlanc murdered Pakeerah, whom he knew, to obtain money to pay back a drug-related debt.
Its not often the one-simple-solution fanatics and the press drones fall so spectacularly on their faces in public, but it sure is funny to watch when it happens.
US forces in Afghanistan were increasingly frustrated that the Taliban
fighters avoided them, and the psychops detachment came up with a
solution. They drove loudspeaker equipped Humvees into a known
Taliban stronghold.
"Take off your burqas,"
Afghan interpreters shouted, referring to the head-to-toe powder blue
shrouds Taliban leaders once forced all women in the country to wear.
"Come out and fight us like men."
