{"id":12226,"date":"2018-08-27T07:51:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T11:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=12226"},"modified":"2018-08-27T07:53:12","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T11:53:12","slug":"florida-shooting-video-gamers-killed-by-rival-at-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/08\/27\/florida-shooting-video-gamers-killed-by-rival-at-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida shooting: Video gamers killed by rival at tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two professional video gamers have been named by US media as the victims of a rival player in a shooting at an eSports tournament in Florida.<\/p>\n

Eli Clayton, 21, and Taylor Robertson, 27, were both well-known players of the Madden NFL American football game.<\/p>\n

Police say David Katz, 24, from Baltimore, carried out the attack at the Jacksonville Landing shopping and entertainment complex on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Unconfirmed reports say Katz had become angry after losing a match.<\/p>\n

Florida has seen several mass shootings in recent years, including at the\u00a0Pulse nightclub<\/a>\u00a0in Orlando in 2016, when 49 people died, and\u00a0the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland in February\u00a0<\/a>this year, when 17 people were killed.<\/p>\n

Although the two gamers have not yet been officially named, tributes have been paid to them on social media:<\/p>\n

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chasedel<\/span><\/span>@ChaseDel<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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it’s not much but I just wanted to make this avi for anyone that wants to use it in memorial of these two. I remember when we use to chance our avis to show support for players. thoughts and prayers are with their families. rest in peace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Both had been competing at the Madden NFL 19 event at the GLHF Game Bar, attached to Chicago Pizza in Jacksonville Landing when the shooting erupted on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Eli, or Elijah, Clayton was known by the handle Trueboy. He had played football at two of his high schools and was seen as a rising star in the increasingly lucrative eSports field.<\/p>\n

Taylor Robertson, who took the handle SpotMePlzzz, was also a successful eSports player, having won the Madden 17 Classic.\u00a0His Twitter feed<\/a>\u00a0lists him as a father, husband and pro-Madden player for DotCityGaming.<\/p>\n

One of the leading Madden players, Hassan (Gos) Spall, tweeted a tribute:<\/p>\n

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Gos<\/span><\/span>@gos_madden<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I’m only making one tweet and i just wanna say RIP to trueboy and spotme and my prayers go out to their families. I lost one of my best friends in madden in spotme, him and trueboy were two of the nicest people ever. Please pray for everyone effected by this shooting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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EA Sports, the company that owns Madden and approved the competition, told the BBC it was “devastated by this horrific event… a senseless act of violence that we strongly condemn”.<\/p>\n

It sent its heartfelt sympathies to the families of the victims.<\/p>\n

People fled for shelter and Swat teams checked the area.<\/p>\n

The body of Katz was then found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said they believed there were no accomplices.<\/p>\n

The Jacksonville sheriff’s office said 11 more people had been wounded in the attack, with another two suffering other injuries as they fled.<\/p>\n

David Katz, a well-known gamer, lived in Baltimore and had travelled to take part in the event.<\/p>\n

He was the winner of at least one Madden championship, in 2017.<\/p>\n

An announcer at a previous competition had said of Katz: “He is not here to make friends. He’s all business, he’s focused” and that getting him to talk about anything was like “pulling teeth”.<\/p>\n

The FBI confirmed its agents had searched his family home in the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore on Sunday evening and had spoken to relatives.<\/p>\n

Drini Gjoka, a 19-year-old player taking part, described the shooting in a series of posts on Twitter, calling it “the worst day of [his] life”.<\/p>\n

Another competitor Chris “Dubby” McFarland said a bullet had grazed his head.<\/p>\n

Taylor Poindexter from Chicago said she saw the gunman taking aim at people in the room.<\/p>\n

“We did see him, two hands on the gun, walking back, just popping rounds,” she said. “I was scared for my life and my boyfriend’s.”<\/p>\n

Madden competitor Derek Jones told Associated Press news agency: “I’m glad I lost today. Because if I’d won, I would have been in that game bar right then playing a game and not paying attention. And he could have come and I’d probably be dead right now.”<\/p>\n

The event was a Madden NFL 19 qualifier, with a $5,000 (\u00a33,900) top prize.<\/p>\n

The leading players would progress to a Madden Classic round of 16 in Las Vegas in October.<\/p>\n

Those who make it to the overall finals would play for a share of a $165,000 pool.<\/p>\n

Successful eSports players can win lucrative endorsements, earn money from video streaming and play for thousands of dollars in prizes.<\/p>\n

The shooting has already sparked calls for greater security at eSports events.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two professional video gamers have been named by US media as the victims of a rival player in a shooting at an eSports tournament in Florida. Eli Clayton, 21, and Taylor Robertson, 27, were both […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[5433,5431,417,5430,300,5432,5434],"class_list":{"0":"post-12226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-david-katz","10":"tag-eli-clayton","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-madden-nfl","13":"tag-shooting","14":"tag-taylor-robertson","15":"tag-video-gamers","16":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12229,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12226\/revisions\/12229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}