jack thompson

Hey, kids, I may be a jerk to you, but I am right 99.9% of the time, and that drives the industry absolutely crazy!

URGENT
John B. Thompson, J.D.
5721 Riviera Drive
Coral Gables, Florida 33146
305-666-4366
amendmentone@comcast.net

February 21, 2010

The Honorable Leland Yee
Senator, State of California
State Capitol, Room 4074
Sacramento, CA 95814 Fax: (916) 327-2186

Re: Video Game Addiction and Harm to Minors

Dear Senator Yee:

My old boss, Sam Powers, taught me that if the other side talks long enough, they will give you all you need to win. In that vein, please take a look at what Activision’s CEO just admitted about video game addiction:

“Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is definitely not afraid to speak his mind, which may or may not be a good thing for investors in his company. His recent comments at the D.I.C.E. Summit did nothing to change that perception.

While Kotaku labeled his speech “warm and fuzzy,” one section of his talk centered on why he doesn’t play games anymore, and caught our attention:
I play from time to time, but the nature of my personality is such that if I was regularly playing Modern Warfare 2, I would not be able to stop and it would be at the expense of all my regular responsibilities.
What does it say about the addictiveness of videogames if the CEO of the third largest publisher in the world can’t play games because of his addictive personality?”
You can see the streaming audio/video of this wonderfully useful admission by Kotick at http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/02/19/kotick-not-much-gamer-anymore.

This admission flies in the face of video game industry spokespersons’ false, sometimes perjured assertions, that video games do not affect the behavior of minors. Here is a full-grown adult (at least in chronological terms) admitting just the opposite.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience.

Regards, Jack Thompson

John B. Thompson, Attorney at Law
1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146
305-666-4366

October 7, 2006

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. Via Fax

Re: This Tuesday’s Presidential School Violence Summit

Dear Mr. President:

I appreciate very much your invitation to me to attend your School Violence Summit. I represented the families of the three Paducah, Kentucky, school girls shot and killed by a 14-year-old boy on December 1, 1997. The day after we filed a federal lawsuit identifying the violent video game on which he trained to kill them, I unfortunately predicted “Columbine” on NBC’s Today show, which occurred one week later, even identifying the video game on which Klebold and Harris trained for their massacre.

Scientific, medical, and law enforcement experts have repeatedly identified the immersion of school shooters in violent video games as a factor common to many of these tragedies. The American Psychological Association has linked violent video game play to increased teen aggression. Juveniles process these violent murder simulations in a different part of the brain than do adultsas MRI studies at Harvard show.

Mr. President, there are three things you can do right now to thwart school shootings:

1. Announce your support of a federal law that prohibits the sale of Mature-rated violent video games to children.

2. Join the Miami-Dade School system—the nation’s fourth largest—whose Board months ago asked Take-Two, the makers of the Grand Theft Auto games linked to numerous killings by teens, inside schools and out—by condemning the October 17 release of Take-Two’s Bully—a Columbine simulation game. I am in a courtroom in Miami the day after your Summit trying to stop its sale to children.

3. Direct the Republican National Committee to give back to Take-Two’s registered lobbyist in the US House and Senate—the Philadelphia lobbyist/law firm of Blank Rome—their huge “bundled” campaign contributions. Blank Rome has given more money to the RNC than any other lobbyist/law firm in the world. This is blood money from the lobbyist for the very games that have trained more school killers than any other.

Respectfully, Jack Thompson

Dennis McCauley's pimping for the video game industry, which helps provide him revenue, has now gotten pathetic. Has Dennis McCauley interviewed the psychiatrist who examined Posey for nine hours. I have. McCauley has not. Dennis thinks he's a lawyer. Thinks he's a psychiatrist, but he isn't even a staff columnist for a newspaper. He's a blogger pimp for the industry he supposedly is covering who never saw the journalistic ethics issue of filing a Bar complaint against me and not telling his readers that he had. The complaint was thrown out, as should be anything this "journalist" writes about the industry that provides him a revenue stream.

Jack Thompson

Dennis McCauley, of course, is a shill for the video game industry, who brought a Bar complaint against me to shut me up, and it was just thrown out by The Florida Bar as meritless. Dennis won't tell you about that, so intent is he upon covering up his pro-industry bias and his willingness to bring a baseless Bar complaint against its critic.

Since I am the one who brought the Posey lawsuit, you would think that Dennis McCauley might have actually been able to read the complaint which I sent him. There is no similarity whatseover between his characterization of the lawsuit and what it really says. It doesn't even ask for $600 million, so McCauley can't even get that fact straight.

I did three national television shows this week about the lawsuit, but this freelance game industry flak and for blogs such as this can't bring himself even to mention my name in this story or quote from the complaint itself.

The problem with many of you gamers is that you ought to have giant Exhibit A stickers on your foreheads. You are proof positive of how video games have occluded your mental faculty to even engage in rational thought and debate about whether what we pour into our heads has behavioral consequences. Of course it does. Every psychologist knows that. Dennis McCauley knows that, but he gets income from the very industry that he supposedly is fairly covering.

What a joke. What a dangerous, sick joke the term "video game journalist" has become. Oh, and enjoy the below:

URGENT
John B. Thompson, Attorney at Law
1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146
305-666-4366

September 29, 2006
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. Via Fax

Re: America’s “Sex and Violence” Pop Culture and the War on Terror

Dear Mr. President:

Your friend and now Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes is quoted today around the world as saying the following:

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > POLITICS

Hughes: Fixing U.S. Image May Take Years
Thursday, September 28, 2006
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
• E-MAIL STORY
• PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
WASHINGTON — It may take decades to change anti-American feelings around the world that have been aggravated by war in Iraq, U.S. policy toward Israel and America's"sex and violence"culture, the State Department official in charge of dealing with the U.S. image abroad said Thursday.
Mr. President, Undersecretary Hughes has it right. In November of last year, in my book, Out of Harm’s Way, which recounts my 18 years of labor against the American entertainment industry’s marketing of sex and violence to children, I noted that America gives radical Islamists a powerful recruitment tool with the exportation of our pornographic and violent entertainment products to the rest of the world.

But there is something you can do about that problem right now. You and the Republican National Committee have received more money from the Philadelphia law firm of Blank Rome than from any other lobbyist/law firm in the world.

Blank Rome is the registered lobbyist in the US House and US Senate for Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., which has sold sixty million units of its Grand Theft Auto video games, which feature killing citizens at random, having sex with prostitutes and then killing them, and particularly targeting police officers for death, as I explained on CBS’s 60 Minutes in two broadcasts last year. You met two brothers of a slain Alabama police officers in a special White House ceremony awhile back. Their brother’s killer trained on Take-Two/Blank Rome’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, as 60 Minutes showed.

This is the same game, in its San Andreas version, in which Take-Two knowingly embedded interactive, graphic sex called the “Hot Coffee mod” and knowingly sold it to children. Your own Administration’s Federal Trade Commission found that this Blank Rome client, Take-Two was guilty of fraudulent and deceptive trade practices in this “Hot Coffee” scandal. The sale of graphic sex constitutes a violation of federal felony criminal statutes prohibiting the sale of sexual material harmful to minors. Why your Justice Department, knowing fully about this fact, is not prosecuting Take-Two, as I have asked Attorney General Gonzales to do, I have no idea. You should tell him to do so.

Mr. President, maybe you should show some leadership on this very issue that Ms. Hughes has raised and also direct the Republican National Committee to give all donations received from Blank Rome back to these lobbyists for this porn-to-kids industry leader, Take-Two. I have personally contacted, repeatedly, your friend, David Girard-diCarlo, who is an RNC Ranger—so massive is his “bundling” of campaign dollars to the RNC—and he couldn’t care less about the fact that he is both your friend and also a front man for a company that mentally molests minors for money with sex and violence. The Arab world sees this, and simmers. Karen Hughes is right.

Blank Rome also has blood on its hands. The money they have raised and given to the RNC is blood money. Just this week I had to file a wrongful death lawsuit in New Mexico arising out of the fact that a 14-year-old boy trained on Take-Two/Blank Rome’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to kill three people. Blank Rome is the functional equivalent of Al Capone’s consigliere, as it knowingly facilitates the rising body count.

Mr. President, it is time to cut the campaign cash umbilical to Blank Rome. Your Administration might as well be taking money from the child pornography industry, with the only difference being that Blank Rome knowingly facilitates the sale of porn to children.

Mr. President, listen to Karen Hughes, as you often do. If you want us to win the War on Terror, part of which is a struggle for the hearts and minds of well-meaning Muslims, then you must tell Blank Rome: “Here’s your filthy money. We don’t want it. It is putting our nation in harm’s way.”

Regards, Jack Thompson

Copy: Undersecretary Karen Hughes
David Girard-diCarlo, Blank Rome
Certain Members of Congress

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
IN AND FOR MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA

JOHN B. THOMPSON ON BEHALF
OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA,

Plaintiff,

v. CASE NO. 06-16311, Judge Ronald Friedman

WAL-MART STORES, INC.,
TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE
SOFTWARE, INC., and GAMESTOP, INC.,

Defendants.

NOTICE OF HEARING

YOU ARE HEREBY provided notice that Judge Ronald Friedman will hear
plaintiff’s Motion for Temporary Restraining Order to stop the sale of Bully to minors, per the complaint filed herein, on Wednesday, October 11, 2006, at 1:30pm in Room 1304, Dade County Courthouse, 73 West Flagler Street, Miami, Florida.
I HEREBY CERTIFY that on September 29, 2006, the undersigned provided this Notice to counsel for defendants Take-Two and GameStop, to Steve Lessne at Blank Rome, 1200 North Federal Highway, Suite 417, Boca Raton, Florida 33432 (fax #561-417-8101) and by e-mail to lessne@blankrome.com and to defendant Wal-Mart by fax to its outside counsel, Robert Baugh, at (205) 930-5101, 2311 Highland Avenue South Birmingham, AL 35205.
_____________________________
JOHN B. THOMPSON, Attorney
Florida Bar #231665
1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111
Coral Gables, Florida 33146
Phone: 305-666-4366

Dear Knuckleheads at Joystiq (you don't know who you are):

The Bully controversy "fire has been extinguished" with the game's receipt of a "T" rating? Hardly. That rating makes it clear that this Columbine/school violence simulator will be sold to any kid, regardless of age. Today's review of Bully at ign.com makes it very clear that the game is just as violent as I have been saying. Congressional testimony recently proves that the entire rating system is a sham (see testimony of Harvard's Kimberly Thompson).

We are going to have a hearing here in Florida to stop release of the game to minors. But you all wouldn't know that at Joystiq, because all you apparently can read is cheat code books. Duh.

Jack Thompson

Armaina asks: "Where are the parents?"

Is this a typical Joystiq knucklehead? They're dead, ace. They let Posey play the game, day after day. Duh.

As Joystiq repeatedly proves, the truth seems "boring" when you're liars, because the truth is such an inconvenience. Justice, on the other hand, blesses the soul. You all wouldn't understand. You're chronic pixelante robots. But try to enjoy the below real news anyway. This is how real journalists report and write. Hooah! Jack Thompson:

Families claim game warped Posey's mind
Florida attorney says prosecutor Sandra Grisham suggested they file the lawsuit
Alamogordo Daily News
By Dianne Stallings, For the Daily News
Alamogordo Daily News

Relatives of Cody Posey, who was convicted at the age of 15 of killing three family members in 2004 on the ranch of television newsman Sam Donaldson in Lincoln County, filed a $600 million wrongful death lawsuit Monday against a video game manufacturer.

Jack Thompson, a Miami attorney who is waging a legal and legislative battle against violent video games he contends "train" young minds to kill, is co-counsel on the case. Attorney Steven K. Sanders, a former assistant district attorney in the counties of Lincoln and Otero is the lead attorney.

They contend in the suit that the game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" was among the factors that led to the triple murder.

The attorneys filed suit in 2nd Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County, because Cody Posey, convicted of shooting his father, his stepmother and stepsister, is incarcerated there and Sanders is based there, Thompson said Tuesday.

"It's important to point out that no one 9 certainly not my clients or (prosecutor) Sandy Grisham, is saying Cody is not responsible for the crimes," the attorney said. "We're saying they trained him how to kill and honed his appetite. This is not an isolated incident."

Thompson was referring to a case in Fayette County, Ala., where two police officers and a dispatcher were murdered in 2003. Thompson represented the victim's family in another multi-million lawsuit that blamed "Grand Theft Auto" for the murders and sued Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games and Sony Corp., makers of the game.

According to Thompson, the Alabama Supreme Court denied motions to dismiss, and the case, which was feature on "60 Minutes," is set for trial next year. The accused in that case, Devin Moore, 20, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

"Four experts who have testified before Congress have told the Alabama court that if he had not played the game, he would not have killed," Thompson said. "That's strong stuff, but it happens to be true. Now the Alabama Supreme Court has rejected the industry's First Amendment arguments, and the case is proceeding to trial this next year."

Lawyer claims compelling evidence

The Posey lawsuit, which asks for compensatory, special and punitive damages, was filed by Verlin Posey of Texline, Texas, who represents the estate of his murdered brother Delbert Paul Posey, Pat and Leona Basham of Elephant Butte, parents of Tryone Posey, Cody's stepmother, and grandparents of Marilea Schmid, identified in the lawsuit as Marilea Posey.

Posey's father was manager of the Donaldson ranch.

Thompson claims that the day Posey was sentenced to state custody until he is 21, prosecutor Grisham "called and asked me to bring that lawsuit. I find that rather remarkable because law enforcement tends to be wary of such suits as exculpatory (helping the defendant)."

"That's an understandable response, but a deadly dangerous one, as our society must come to grips, and quickly, with the fact that entertainment copycat killings are occurring all over the place," Thompson said. "Just take a look at what happened this month at Dawson College in Montreal."

Grisham said Tuesday that after Cody was sentenced and she spoke to the family, she asked if Thompson would be willing to represent them and passed his telephone number to those relatives.

Thompson said Posey's attorney during his trial, Gary Mitchell, was not interested in the video game angle.

"He didn't want to talk to me about it," Thompson said. "He had a theory in his case, and from a criminal defense standpoint, he had a great result. He didn't want to go that way, and that's fine."

Mitchell said Tuesday he recalls talking to Thompson "about it at some length, and I reviewed the material he sent me. In our investigations, we try not to leave anything uncovered.

"I didn't see as it as a meritorious defense. I was far more concerned about the abuse Cody suffered over the years than any connection to playing a game on the computer."

While the prosecution described Posey in his trial as a cold-blooded killer whose actions were premeditated, the defense claimed he snapped after years of abuse at the hands of his father. Several family members and friends backed up the reports of abuse.

The $600 million wrongful death suit filed Monday blames "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," claiming Posey played it obsessively for several months before the killings.

'Virtual reality murder simulators'

According to the suit and in interviews immediately after the murder on July 4, 2004, Thompson claims he was told by a sheriff's deputy that the game and a Sony Playstation 2 were found at the ranch.

The lawsuit calls various editions of the game "virtual reality murder simulators."

"A video game may not, by itself, cause a teen or another individual to kill, but it can provide an indispensable or final link in a casual chain that results in tragedy," the suit states.

The game trained Cody on how to target a victim and shoot a gun, "making him an extraordinarily effective killer without teaching him any of the constraints or responsibilities needed to inhibit such a killing capacity," according to the suit.

The attorneys cited killings executed by other teens who played video games back to December 1997, contending in one case involving a 14-year-old that he "developed his counter-intuitive, unnatural, one-shot-per-target technique from playing and training on violent (mature-rated) video games.".

The plaintiffs accuse the corporate defendants of a "civil conspiracy," contending Sony Corporation of America, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and its subsidiary, Rockstar Games showed a "wanton and/or willful and reckless disregard for the safety of others."

Jim Ankner, a spokesman for Take-Two Interactive, could not be reached for comment at the New York corporate office, but other reports on the lawsuit indicate company officials believe the suit is without merit and will "strongly defend" the company.

I did three national television shows about the irrefutable scientific proof that violent video games lead to violence, as in New Mexico. Didn't see any gamers in any of these interviews. Maybe you gamers all need to do your homework and study up so that you, too, can participate in discussion in the public square as adults. Hooah! Jack Thompson

See http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4213643.html