Ontario police turn to Xbox Live to find missing CoD4 player

by Griffin McElroy on Oct 26th 2008 2:00PM

Brandon Crisp, a 15-year-old Barrie, Ontario native and avid gamer, has been missing since October 11. Crisp stormed out of his home shortly after his parents, afraid for the teen's social well-being due to his proclivity for Call of Duty 4, took away his Xbox 360. Since Crisp's disappearance, several groups have made major efforts to try and locate the teen -- including Microsoft, who donated $25,000 to a reward fund for anyone with information on Crisp's whereabouts.

Following the suspicions of Crisp's parents, the cyber crimes unit of the Ontario Police are now turning to an unlikely source for leads -- Brandon's Xbox Live friends list. Fearing that one of his clanmates might have something to do with his disappearance, police asked Microsoft to breach their own privacy protocols to reveal the personal information of Xbox Live subscribers that frequently associated with Crisp. Regardless of what you may think of Microsoft's actions, we're sure we all share the hope that Brandon will return home quickly and safely.

Source

Tags: brandon-crisp, call-of-duty-4, disappearance, microsoft, Xbox-360, xbox-live

Reader Comments (144)

You've got wood.

I do have wood for the Storm, wish I could keep it, but alas it is not mine to keep.

But, how does wood, get so hard?

Well, when a daddy has an extremely pretty mommy and they love each other very much.....

They don't have to love each other

"They don't have to love each other"

trust me...i know that's true

The reason for all this is that his mum is convinced that he's been kidnapped by someone he met online playing Call of Duty.

Now, fair enough if it was Second Life or perhaps even WoW, but CoD is hardly the ideal forum for making online friends, much less for falling victim to predators.

speak for yourself. you can make a lot of new friends when you play hardcore search and destroy.

Hope he dies.

Whoa.

'"It could be organized crime or someone involved in Internet gambling. Pedophiles can stalk kids through these games," Brandon's father told The Star.'

What a weird thing to say.

Not if you're secretly a pedophile mob boss addicted to gambling.

@WRE

That made my day.

He's very adept at finding other people to blame besides him and his son. Maybe that's part of how this whole mess started.

He taking it to the extreme. I think the Dad is a little bit out of touch with reality. And yeah, the kid runs away on his own, even with his dad helping him pack, and somehow it's now organized crime, or even those vicious online gamblers. This guy's got some issues of his own.

sounds like he was watching dateline or dr. phil reruns this summer because thats what i heard there. and not the one that was just on

I have been following this in the local news here in Toronto. I feel bad for his parents and I hope they find him safe and sound.

The thing is I have a feeling if things to turn for the worst the first they are going to do is blame XBL or Video games in General. He was playing COD4. Now, that game is rates M if I am not mistaken. Why did his parents buy their son a game that is intended for people 17+ when he is only 15??

I really do hope that the boy is found alive and well but I also do not like the fact they are trying to pinpoint video games as the cause here. In Canada we have not had many, if not any, cases where there have been missing persons reports, death or acts of violence/crime due to Video games. I think this might be a first here. Correct me if I'm wrong please. Again.. I hope they find the kid safe and sound. Specifically this whole thing went down in Barrie which is about an hour to 90 minutes from the Greater Toronto Area.

I've played 18 rated games since I was 13 and I've turned out alright.

...

SIEG HEIL!! THE ARYANS SHALL REIGN SUPREME

They said in the first article that the kid bought CoD 4 with his own Christmas money.

This is what sucks about the age we live in now. When I was a kid, we weren't supposed to talk to strangers. The only way a stranger could get to us is if we were outside going somewhere. Now it's unlimited access 24/7 for anybody connected to any type of online community.

I hope everything turns out all right for this family.

Heey i sent this tip in yesterday.
Glad to see it up.

Not to be an ass, but I'm confused as to why this is getting so much attention. The kid ran away from home. He wasn't kidnapped, he wasn't murdered, there's nothing here that's even out of the ordinary. The story seems to be: "A thing happened, and a video game was involved."

So now the police think that the kid is hiding out at his friends'? They only thought of this now?

This might make a decent story about warrentless privacy violation, but I'm not seeing anything else here.

you must not pay very much attention to the news these days...

Main stream media assumes the worst and will sensationalize this until there is a resolution.
couple months the news looks for a new great evil plaguing our society and warning us about it.
Remember west nile? yeah, that fell out of the news the second we found a greater threat to humanity.

While I'm all for finding the kid, you're invading the privacy of the families of the subscribers. Microsoft said they wouldn't disclose those details, and they did. They're treating these people simply as a means to an end. People are an end in themselves; Microsoft should contact those people (or their parents if they're minors) before disclosing private information.

Although the privacy break is somewhat debatable, I think it's great that the authorities didn't exclude 'them video games' as a means to find the kid. It means that games are becoming an accepted form of media, at least to a police unit in Ontario

I imagine if a prostitute was murdered, the police would talk to other prostitutes who knew the victim. It's not really a sign that society is accepting gaming - they're simply following leads, and the guy was a gaming fanatic.

But you have to admit it wasn't their first thought, that it took some inventing and thinking on their part to come to the conclusion that Live is a way to find the kid. I see that as a success of accepting games as a viable media.

It's inventive on the police's part but I don't think the acceptance of games has any relevance to it. Indeed, a lot of the opinion pieces about the story have been on the theme of "oh look, this boy was addicted to those damn computer games", rather than "aren't games great? police are using xbox live to try and track him down".

Parents and friends are shit to kid.
Kid feels isolated and becomes dependant on online gaming.
Kid becomes addicted.
Parents concerned he's not feeling shitty enough remove source of addiction and mockingly pack his bags.
Kid runs away.
Games are blamed.
Child still missing like thousands of other runaways each year.
Gamers are blamed.
Bounty out on childs head and parents demand breach of service contracts with live users to find the child they drove away.
Game news circuits are covering the story and people just won't shut up about it.
Meanwhile, election time is under 10 days away and we're paying attention to an angsty shithead running away from abusive parents WHY?

We're paying attention to this "shithead" because this is a video game news blog, not a political blog, despite what some commenters might think. *

*However, I do agree that we are paying too much attention to something that will most likely get solved without the help of anyone here.

Where'd that first sentence come from?

Maybe the kid was just a prick. That could also lead to this chain of events.

Wow man, that's a solid close with 'angsty shithead'.

Let's all hope he's safe somewhere, buying old flannel shirts, and starting a grunge band.

"we're paying attention to an angsty shithead running away from abusive parents WHY?"

And you've commented on this particular post a handful of times why?

Keep replying and the Joystiq staff will be even more inclined to post stuff like this. Tada.

I just want to know how many kids you have to find before you get to call in an air strike?

uR awesome.

Apparently MS upped the reward to $50,000... I live not too far away from Barrie, who wants to make $50,000?

So wait a second... this kid is playing a game he's not old enough to buy, the parents take it away from him and mock him, basically tell him to leave, and when he does, they're surprised? How does this make the news? Everybody is at fault here. Parents shouldn't have bought the game for the kid. Parents shouldn't have mocked the kid, although taking away an addicting source for his own good was the right thing to do. Kid shouldn't have been such a little bitch about it. I mean, I remember doing something similar when I was 4 years old, and even looking back at it when I was 6 I realized how stupid it was. This just lends more credence to the fact that the kid wasn't mature enough to be playing an M-rated game. Everyone here is equally culpable; the parents were stupid, the kid was stupid, the situation as a whole is completely inane. I hope the kid gets home alright, but seriously parents, get your asshole kids in line. If you're not ready to parent, don't breed.

Amen, brother.

nope,
you're thinking too much and not pointing enough fingers.
Main stream media and people who consume it will never go for that logic.

Seriously. The kid may have been difficult to parent before. After he runs away and you beg Microsoft to find him, he's going to be incorrigible.

Anyway, I hope the kid comes back, but it sure sounds like there were a lot of mistakes made here on all sides.

As much as I hate squeaky 15 year olds in M rated games, I hope the kid gets back safe to his folks.

And if this whole thing was just the kid's attention stunt, he deserves to get his 360 banned till he is 18.

squeaky 15 year olds? when did you go through puberty?

15 YEAR OLD DETECTED

He should have played on PSN instead. They'll give all your communication information to the Police.

What's a 15 year old playing an M game anyway?

Its not the video game's fault, or the parent's fault. It is the stupid little shits fault. He is such a stupid little nerd that he plays video games all day, which is HORRIBLY STUPID and EXTREMELY UNHEALTHY (both mentally and physically), that he becomes obsessed with it. His parents notice this, and do the right thing by taking his Xbox away, which I'm sure they bought for him. What does he do? He throws a temper tantrum, and storms out. This just proves that he's stupid. He runs away from home, and his Xbox, because his parents are worried.

I can honestly say that I have no sympathy for him, and I would be happy if he wasn't ok. If he is that stupid, and that pathetic, he deserves what's coming to him.

You really should read Grand Theft Childhood.

In it, one of the authors pointed out that ANYTIME a child becomes obsessed with an activity, it's a sign of deeper problems or a yearning for escape. That's the question that should be raised right now.

Why was this kid retreating to the online world soooo much? You figure that out and suddenly the parents you're trying to absolve of blame might not look so good. Keep in mind, when he threatened to run away, his father packed his bags.

You know, the biggest problem with this world is nothing is any one's fault.

You may say it is the parent's fault, but when you look at why they may have acted like that, you'll see that it is really THEIR parent's parent's fault.

We need to stop finding excuses for people, and let them take responsibility for their own stupidity.

Either their "yearning for escape" or its their fault, and they should take the blame.
Of course the parents didn't take him seriously, any sane person wouldn't actually run away for that.

The kids a little whiney shit, its his fault. The parents bought him the Xbox, probably bought him the games, bought him everything. They aren't bad parents.

Blame is hard to place. We always have personal responsibility for our actions, but you can't just dismiss outside motivations

Embracing an extreme is usually counter-intuitive

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Ontario police turn to Xbox Live to find missing CoD4 player

Reader Comments (144)

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