With the Florida murders still fresh in people’s minds, event organizers are taking shooting threats more seriously than ever. Yesterday, it was revealed that a Twitch user had threatened a similar mass-shooting at the upcoming Evo Championship Series. Event organizers…
With the Florida murders still fresh in people’s minds, event organizers are taking shooting threats more seriously than ever. Yesterday, it was revealed that a Twitch user had threatened a similar mass-shooting at the upcoming Evo Championship Series. Event organizers have contacted the FBI and Twitch regarding the matter, promising that the perpetrator will be punished under the full extent of the law.
In a Twitter discussion about security at gaming tournaments, a screengrab was posted showing a message from Twitch user ‘quackquackhonks.’ It read, “Mass shooting @ EVO18 see you there.” Evo, which takes place in Las Vegas this August, is an annual eSports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games such as the Street Fighter and Tekken franchises. It’s expected that over 100,000 fans will attend the three-day event, which is located at the same Mandalay Bay hotel that saw 58 people killed and over 800 injured during a 2017 mass shooting.
Less than 90 minutes after the Twitch threat came to light, Evo organizer Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar tweeted that it was being taken very seriously and that both the streaming platform and the FBI had been notified.
We are aware of the threat that was made against Evo 2018, and have contacted the FBI and Twitch regarding this matter. We take this very seriously, and they will be punished to the full extent of the law.
— Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) March 10,2018
It’s been almost one month since Nikolas Jacob Cruz shot seventeen people and wounded seventeen more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. There have been heightened tensions over the possibility of more mass shootings since then, with some people placing the blame for gun crimes on video games—check out the White House’s supercut of violent game deaths, which includes several clips from the Call of Duty series.
Earlier this month, a judge banned a Chicago teenager from playing violent games after he made a “joke” threat on Snapchat to carry out a school shooting. It’s unclear why judge Robert Anderson thought this was a fitting punishment, though he did say the boy could play all the Mario Kart he wanted.
EVO 2018 is set to take place on August 3rd until August 5th.
