An argument over the Playstation 3’s Tony Hawk: Ride has lead to the murder of a 9-year-old boy. The heinous crime was perpetrated on Anthony Maldonado, a resident of New Jersey, by family member Alejandro Morales. Morales, a 25-year-old male, slashed at the boy’s chest and face only to have him die soon after being brought to a hospital. The man was alone with the child at 3:30 Saturday morning at his grandmother’s apartment in Harlem playing the video game. The grandmother has stated that, “My grandson died over a video game,” while a family friend has said regarding the killer that, “He doesn’t act right on the street but he always minded his manners in the house.” Morales, who also goes by the fake name Michael Jacob, has a history of lewd behavior and violent tendencies with dozens of arrests and having spent two years in a state prison for assault.
There are so many tragic and peculiar things about this murder that it leaves one wondering how it could ever come to pass. The video game that they were playing is said to be what set off Morales but this is clearly a man with more problems than can possibly be imagined. It is hard to imagine that a game about skateboarding alone enraged Morales to the point where he could commit murder. His past criminal convictions attest to the fact that he is a dangerous person and that anything could have driven him to this so blaming the video game is merely an impulse reaction that has a resounding reaction with the public.
Being that Morales was a man with a broad criminal past and hardly of fine moral character, this challenges the claim that video games are a source of aggression and violence – he was aggressive and violent far before playing video games with the young victim Maldonado. For most of his adult life the perpetrator was a menace and obviously did not learn from his previous tour in prison. It is alarming that so many ex-convicts are released from prison and only to perpetrate further crimes. Clearly there are faults in the penal system but the grandmother gives Morales too much credit when she says that her grandson died because of a video game. Instead she should have said that her grandson died because her older grandson is a brutal idiot. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that his upcoming prison sentence will have much of an impact on his crooked character.
There are so many questions that should be directed at the family to question their competence and why characters such as Morales were allowed to be near and alone with a young child at the early hours of the morning. Allowing an ex-convict with a violent past to be in close quarters with a child boggles the mind. I seriously doubt that many parents would even entertain the idea of allowing such a circumstance. In no way should a child and an adult criminal be allowed to do anything alone in a room late at night. To believe otherwise is insanity. The debate about games causing aggression and violence will surely rage on for some time and this is just another case of video games being blamed for something when there are other real and apparent causes. The video game is just the most visible suspect. Unfortunately, stupidity is perpetual for some people and over time it causes them to be blind to reality.
What do you guys think, has the media gone desperate blaming as much as a skateboarding game over a murder of a person? Comment below and let us know. No registration required to comment.
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Dude deserves to die. Violence against children needs to stop!
Eye for an eye. Public execution through knife slashing. Unfortunately it still won’t equal the horror that child must have felt.
sad story. most of all it’s so sad the grandmother jumps straight to “My grandson died over a video game”, rather than the obvious that was stated perfectly in the last paragraph:
“There are so many questions that should be directed at the family to question their competence and why characters such as Morales were allowed to be near and alone with a young child at the early hours of the morning. Allowing an ex-convict with a violent past to be in close quarters with a child boggles the mind. I seriously doubt that many parents would even entertain the idea of allowing such a circumstance. In no way should a child and an adult criminal be allowed to do anything alone in a room late at night. To believe otherwise is insanity. ……….
Gaming, Music and the television – The Entertainment industry has absolutely nothing what so ever to do with violence against anything or anyone. Period. I agree with the first comment, violence against children does in fact need to stop, however killing him ain’t gonna make it stop and it ain’t gonna change anything – the boy is still dead!!
Furthermore, I also believe that the media (as a whole) should be heavily fined each and everytime a phrase suggesting that the entertainment industry or a portion thereof has caused a death, or violence, or any other sort of injustice. Each paper or blog that prints it, or each reporter that uses it – should be fined hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars!! Period.
I love how video games are immediately blamed simply because they were playing them before . If instead they had been in a movie, would Sherlock Holmes or Avatar be to blame? No! We need to stop blaming media and forms of entertainment when clearly social and domestic issues are at fault. Things will only get worse until we start looking at ourselves.
Where did someone blame the game? It’s not unreasonable to believe that the guy got pissed off over the game and attacked the kid. You’ve pointed out that the guy was violent. Saying the boy “died over a video game” is not the same as saying it causes violence. Without any context, it just sounds like she’s lamenting the death having sprung from something so trivial. Trying to tie in the quote about him normally behaving himself seems to be grasping at straws. Unless there’s more to this story, your argument may be a bit thin.
If you live in harlem what are you doing buying a ps3? why aren’t you using that $500 to find a decent place to live?
I would kill someone too if they made me play Tony Hawk’s Ride!
The grandmother is siting the objective reason why her grandson died. I don’t think she was blaming the game at all. Also, who wrote this story?? This person obviously isn’t from the Hood. If he/she were, they’d realize that every kid in the hood hangs with violent people all the time. They are family. Secondly, this guy is a sociopath. There’s no prison on the planet that’s gonna change that! Lastly, How come everyone didn’t come to the same conclusions I did,… does logical reasoning exist anymore?
This argument doesn’t work for guns so why should it work for video games? It is not the fault of a video game that a sociopath murdered a child.
Xbox 360 sucks, if somebody made me play on an Xbox 360 with it’s last – gen graphics i’d go out and kill someone, too! However i believe theese people were playing the all – powerful PS3, therefore there can be no excuses. PS3 offers top – notch, wholesome family value for all, nobody would ever want to kill somebody when you have the power of the cell at your gaming disposal!
IMO, the Xbox “RROD” 360 is overrated…….to the extreme!
When I first read the article about the kid getting killed, I was very confused because the title was something along the lines of “9 year old killed over video game” but when I actually read the body of the piece I couldn’t find any tangible evidence that video games caused it.
“Morales, who also goes by the fake name Michael Jacob, has a history of lewd behavior and violent tendencies with dozens of arrests and having spent two years in a state prison for assault.”
For F*** Sake you must be demented to leave a kid with that guy…
@Levelhead
Yo, fanboy, shut up. This is a serious matter where someone died. Plus, the whole, “Let’s balme the videogame” thing needs to stop, now.