On Sunday during a Madden 19 tournament, two players were senselessly lost to violence, and ten people were injured. The motives at this time are unclear, but the pain felt by the families of Taylor "Spotmeplzzz" Robertson, and Eli "Trueboy" Clayton are clearly incomprehensible. The perpetrator, whose name is not mentioned in this article, was also a competitor in the Madden 19 tournament that was being hosted at the "Good Luck, Have Fun" Video game lounge where players had the opportunity to advance in a larger Madden tournament. Eight other victims were injured, some tweeting their thanks for being alive and realizing how fragile life is, while others posted pictures of different items they had that had been painted by their own blood after escaping the scene with similar captions discussing how precious life is.
While it has been mentioned that the perpetrator did, in fact, lose at the tournament before committing the crime, that is not the definitive answer as to why he acted in the first place, despite the claims being thrown out that that was the motive. The perpetrator bought handguns in his home-state of Baltimore approximately a month before the incident on Saturday happened, police reports say.
The perpetrator had a history of mental health medications with both schizophrenic and anti-depressants. Since the incident, records of the perpetrator's family have been released showing a history of dealing with mental health issues, and even in one case where the parents of the perpetrator recommended both parties have a court-appointed guardian to best deal with the perpetrator's issues at the time.
In a time where it seems like these kinds of things happen at a steady pace, it's important to continue to remind ourselves that none of these lives lost are acceptable whatsoever from these tragedies. Whether it was the children we lost in Columbine, to the two young men we lost this past weekend, it's never okay to see someone have their life taken against their will.
I've noticed in several reports surrounding this tragedy that it's been pointed out that the perpetrator did this after he lost in a tournament, and seemed mad. To me, this is abhorrently atrocious to even mention such a disregard-able, and negligible fact. For one to infer that losing a video game caused two people to lose their lives is asinine. The perpetrator had some level of pre-meditation for this. He did in fact purchases two firearms a month before the incident, and to even hint the correlation that because he lost he decided the best way for him to act was to use the two firearms he purchased as a means to get back for losing is concerning.
When we deal with this circular debate in America we tend to focus on every last detail besides the last piece of the puzzle.
The perpetrator had a history of working through mental health issues as a child. When his parents were going through the divorce, they BOTH requested to have a court-appointed guardian for their son, as they felt at a loss as to how to help him work through his problems.
All opinions aside on the discussion surrounding mental health vs. gun rights on tragedies like these. While I'm by no stretch of the imagination justifying, or lessening the degree of disdain I have for tragedies like these, I can't help but wonder if the perpetrator had a community around him.
I don't mean a community with neighbors, or online. I mean a community of people, every single day asking how he's doing. With the history of his parents disregarding him while dealing with a divorce I can't help but feel this had some form of a larger impact on how he felt apart of a family, a community.
Take a step back for a second, and imagine. Picture yourself at your middle-school years. Odds are, one of the only things that mattered to you at that age was feeling like you were a part of something. Now picture you're dealing with your parents divorcing, and at the same time, they're saying you are in need of psychiatric evaluations. They've put you on- and off anti-depressants, and anti-schizophrenic medications during this time that you don't know whether or not they are helping, because you're not taking them regularly enough for them to work especially since one of your parent's court-appointed guardians has been told to not let you take the medications you have been taking on and off. You're confused because you don't know if something is wrong with you or not, your family is in a state of in-fighting from your perspective, and you're still a kid trying to figure out where you sit for lunch. He had a lot of issues he dealt with at home that he didn't discuss with a lot of his classmates, according to some reports. Personally, I believe this was only the beginning of an uprooting of his sense of feeling apart of a community, feeling like he had people that truly loved, and cared about him early on.
Perhaps that was exacerbating the issue, perhaps not, but this seems to be a trend in these kinds of incidents. Many of these perpetrators have no sense or feeling of being apart of a community where people see you every day, ask how you are, love you regardless, and show that there are people willing to listen and reach out to those within their community. I also feel this is a touch we have lost as a country since we've started moving into our echo-chambers more and more, trying to replicate what evolution has lead us to with communication within our communities. In a world driven so much on positive feedback I feel as if there are a large, integral part of the communication skills we've lost that are vital in communicating our emotions, deeper thoughts, and feelings with each other fearlessly. We only seek out what drives the positive feedback, and lose sight of the fact that we deal with larger issues on our own now. Possibly afraid at times to share the struggles and circumstances we may be unfortunately subjected to, possibly unwilling to seek out a critical analysis of why we deal with problems in our lives. That's exactly why we need communities around us too. Communities unite us when we feel isolated. They remind us that although we have quirks we can all be something with the right pieces around us. Communities provide stability when we need it. They pick us up when we're down, even if we knock ourselves down because we help each other- that's just what we do as social creatures. How this correlates to the deeply unsettling tragedy from Sunday is hard to say, but I can't help but feel it's connected in some way.
We can't blame one issue, hot-button topic, or debate on how to solve this and get past the ridiculous circular debate we deal with without realizing the failure we have created through the plethora of circumstances that lead these people to act the way they do.
I'm not saying he had it harder than anyone in the rest of society, and as a matter of fact, there are people that deal with much harder circumstances that they can't help either. The perpetrator and his actions are still objectively disgusting, and wrong.
When thinking about this issue and how to approach it differently than times in the past I feel as if we run aground until communication is brought to the table. We need a multi-pronged approach, and soon.
