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In further news of Jack Thompson blaming the Virginia Tech shooting on video games, his letter to the Virginia Tech Police Department has surfaced on the internet. We have posted it here in its entirety for your perusal.
Chief Wendell Flinchum
Virginia Tech Police Department
Dear Chief Flinchum:
The news story in yesterday’s Washington Post proves correct my prediction to your Department Monday that Cho, whose identity was not even know to me at the time, would be a video gamer trained to do what he calmly did on a violent shooter video game.
I went on the Fox News Channel Monday and even identified the game, Counterstrike, obsessively played by Cho, which was also used by Robert Steinhaeuser to author what is now the second worst school shooting in world history in Erfurt, Germany, which he also concluded by killing himself. These are not coincidences; these are patterns.
Further corroboration that this is “life imitating art,” or more accurately “death imitating toxic entertainment” is what is now coming to light as to Cho’s copycatting of a certain violent movie as well. This is generally the case: movie + shooter games = massacre.
I have seen it all before in the Paducah school shootings, where I represented the families of the victims of Michael Carneal, a teen gamer who trained on Doom and was inspired by the Hollywood movie The Basketball Diaries. A Yale psychiatrist said so.
I went on NBC’s Today Show and predicted Columbine one week before it happened, identifying the above two specific move and game entertainment products that Klebold and Harris were also obsessed with.
If your Department really wants to get to the bottom of this, you need to talk to me now. Talk also to my dear friend, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who was singled out by President Clinton as “the one man
Personal regards, Jack Thompson
We will keep you posted if any real evidence that Counterstrike or any other video game played a role in this tragedy.
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