Jack Thompson commentary will undoubtedly be forthcoming.
The mainstream media just loves connecting the dots between crime and video games, but oftentimes those connections are tenuous at best. In the case of Alayiah Turman, however, it’s sadly very clear that video games did, in fact, play a key role in her death. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, the 17-month old toddler pulled on the cords of her father Tyrone Spellman’s Xbox, causing it to fall.
Spellman, who also goes by the name Anwar Salahuddin, became so enraged that he punched the girl repeatedly and possibly threw her across the room as well. When Alayiah’s mother returned home, Spellman told her that the child was sleeping. The police were later told that the young girl had fallen off the bed, but quickly found that there was no evidence to support that claim. Spellman has been charged with murder.
While this is going to create the usual s-storm for the gaming community, the real tragedy here is that an unbalanced and unfit person was left caring for a child in the first place. Apparently an anonymous caller had already tipped off the Department of Human Services that something was awry in that household, but routine investigations failed to turn up anything to warrant intercession by authorities.
How does this happen? Is the system so broken that nobody noticed the child’s father had an insanely violent temper? How did nobody, and I don’t just mean authorities, but family members as well, see this coming?
Source: gametab.com