XPost: rec.sport.football.pro, md.politics, sac.politics
XPost: talk.politics.guns

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.

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 “SpotMePlzzz.”

Gamer David Katz, identified by the Jacksonville sheriff’s
office as the alleged 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.

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.

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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 mass shooting, six patients — 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 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.

Taylor Poindexter, 26, told the Orlando Sentinel that the
gunshot “sounded like a balloon pop.” She and her boyfriend
Marquis Williams were at the bar next door after he was
eliminated from the competition.

“We saw a figure standing there with two hands on a gun, just
walking back, just firing shots,” she told the newspaper.

EA Sports, which manufactures Madden, said they were monitoring
the situation and working with authorities to gather information.

“This is a horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out
to all involved,” the company said in a statement.

Winners of the Madden 19 tournament could take home between $100
and $1,000, with the top two gamers moving on to the finals in
Las Vegas. The game, released on Aug. 7, allows players to
assemble their own NFL teams and compete online or with friends.

The NFL also said it was “shocked and deeply saddened by the
horrific tragedy.”

“Our hearts go out to all those affected,” the league said in a
statement. “We are grateful for the first responders immediately
on the scene. We support our partners at EA Sports and will
continue to monitor developments with local law enforcement.”

Sunday’s violence comes after a shooting outside a Florida high
school football game, which left one person dead and two others
hurt. The Jacksonville sheriff's office reported that the
shooting occurred about 10 p.m. Friday as the crowd was leaving
the Raines High School football game.

Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan said Sunday he was
“heartbroken for the families and friends of the victims” of
Sunday’s tragedy.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the
President had been briefed on the shooting and was monitoring
the situation. Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he was in contact
with the Jacksonville sheriff’s office to “offer any state
resources” needed and that President Trump had also offered
federal resources.

The deadly gunfire comes six months after a massacre at a high
school in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead. March for Our
Lives, the movement launched after the February school shooting,
also spoke out in support.

“As another mass shooting plagues our home state of Florida, we
continue to come together in the face of daily tragedy in order
to prevent the trauma that has become too normal in our nation,”
the organization said in a statement.

“Bullets do not discriminate — whether on our streets, in our
schools, or at our video game tournaments. Gun violence takes
many forms and we must perpetuate the necessary conversations in
order to bring peace to our violent nation.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-news-jacksonville-hooters- shooting-20180826-story.html

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