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Robbers Scared by GTA
HellSpam writes "Some robbers tried to burglarize a poor old lady and her 3 grandsons. Her grandsons happened to be playing Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas, and the sounds of the police from the game scared them away! From the article: "The police in the game were saying, 'Stop, we have you surrounded. This is the police.' The burglar, unknowingly, thought this was the actual police and panicked ... being apprehended by PlayStation." Now, no more saying games are bad for you..."
the grandsons beat the shit out of the poor burglar..
I believe that.
Good sound system, huh?
A man ran in, pointed a gun at me, saw that I was playing Daikatana and ran off screaming.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
I wish the 3 kids then all picked up baseball bats and laid into the thief
before taking off with his car and finding hookers.
What is the point of the word "burglarize"? "Burgle" means exactly the same thing.
This happened back in March. RTFA, Taco.
This sounds abit too much like something from the film "Home Alone" doesn't it?
Crime doesn't P(l)ay(station)!
Thanks, I'm here all week.
apterous.org
Wow, this is definitely some good publicity for GTA (probably the only good publicity).
Please, stop making words up, it's worse than boswollox
Lightning Pool
Suttree, a weblog about casual games development
This was back in March according to the article so GTA:SA wasnt out yet! (must have been a previous one) The story is in the news because they just got sentenced to around 5 years each - kind of like a darwin award they're gonna get the piss taken out of them in jail.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Are you sure that he didn't die laughing at you?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
this guy heard: "Stop, we have you surrounded. This is the police." and then ran away although he did not know the position of the assumed policemen? ...
Not the brightest guy - he might have been easily shot if this had been real
Do they have surround sound?
:P
Either it is awfully good sound system or really dumb crooks!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
This is an amusing story, but how do we know this happened? Did the crook get caught and confess this? Or is this just some joke people are taking as fact?
that he was in the US.In our small country , England , the Govt would charge the old lady , for scaring the burglar.
On a serious note , this is a very big issue.Unlike the US , where the rights of home owners using force against burglars are quite clear , in the UK this is a grey area.Home owners can use reasonable force only and that is decided by the courts.
Wanted : A Signature.
sheesh get it right will ya.
ungeeky
I was playing DDR when the burglar broke in, He got pissed, beat me and shot me!
Did Grandparents own machines capable of playing GTA? Shouldn't they all have 286's with dialup?
This proves my theory that life isn't fair...
...is the burglar got away because the cop that was chasing him ducked when he heard "eat this, pig!"
(Sounds like an urban legend to me...)
He had been carrying a gun, panicked and started shooting.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The verb is 'burgle', and one who burgles is a burglar.
You don't call a burglar a 'burglarizer', do you?
Cripes!
Are you serious? Please try to understand just how much "burglarize" sounds like a bad Bush-ism. That's hilarious.
Well...at leasn now we know that the recordings are realistic!
The dictionary would disagree with you: Burglarize
A 'burglarizer'? Is that someone who burglarizers?
"This is the Police" "This is the FBI" "This is the Army" "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" ...
Thieves : Oh damn, we are so screwed this time, (start shooting everywhere).
and please, stop making words up, it's worse than boswollox
Lightning Pool
Suttree, a weblog about casual games development
Even better, look at the definition of burgle. It cross-references burglarize.
What would've happened if the kids were playing Pokemon instead?
That's an American dictionary, so it doesn't count. They can't even spell "colour".
I think you should take a look at this before you talk about spelling and grammar any more.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
There was a knock at the door, he opened it a crack to answer it (he was in his boxers). The door was forced open and he was pinned to the floor by a bunch of heavily armed cops!
It seems a neighboor had heard somebody yell "Everybody get down!" followed by some gun shots, put 1 and 1 together and came up with 3...
Admittedly I'm in Oxford, home of the OED...
You mean ... you read Slashdot for something other than amusement?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Aye. Incidentally, I submitted this with a better headline.
What's the difference between a homophobic gangster and a cigarette smoker?
The gangster's only killing gay people when he goes out to smoke some fags.
I'm looking for a video game that randomly says "Thank you for ordering the Anniversary Special Bouquet. It will be ready for pickup shortly".
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
Could you at least get your subject right when your post is just a rant on how illiterate we are?
"Morons" not "Moron's"
And by the way... burglarize is a 'real' word in US english.
Finally, documentary evidence that anti-videogame elected officials hold that stance because they also happen to be PRO-CRIME.
"I'm gonna give you to the count of ten to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property before I pump yer guts full of lead. One... two... TEN!" *ACKACKACKACKACKACK* *pizza guy runs away all scared*
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
... this situation proves that without a doubt, violent video games prevent crime!
It happenned BACK IN MARCH....old news people...san andreas was not out back then, just vice city and gta3...
also, the people had guns, i wish people would RTFA but thats too much to ask on slashdot
Dont own only one gun. Or one knife.
"Officer, he broke in, and had just picked up my other gun and i was forced to shoot him!!"
Same goes for knives. THe only problem is, sadly, you can no longer just beat the crap/wound someone breaking into your house, you have to kill them to make sure you dont get sued or arrested.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
That is right, the UK is right because you have to protect the rights of the criminals, they are humans too! The facist Americans allow people to defend their own property like the cavemen they are.
Can't we just put people first? It will never happen in America. We all know George W. Bush invaded Iraq so that oil companies, SUV owners, Rush Limbaugh, and the Jews could oppress liberals. He doesn't care about the criminals either. What an evil man.
George Bush Banned my IP Address!
because he should never bring a knife to a gun fight.
Fight Spammers!
If the burgler had just played Thief...
his Prize for being so dumb is prison and lets hope he enjoys that prize for many many years to come.
and for all the uk press i.e BBC you say GTA is bad for children fuckin tell that to these kids pareants.
I Predict A Riot
Tec: Hey, yo, that was ill. Hey, where'd you learn that from?
B-rad: Grand Theft Auto 3.
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
puke on him due to that game?
>Some robbers tried to burglarize a poor old lady and her 3
Why are old ladies always poor? Do non-poor ladies never get robbed (they should, they have more money).
The burglars who ran away are suing the owners of the home, the children, and Sony for causing them excessive job stress.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I usually wouldn't do this, but since:
... being apprehended by Playstation."
1) The article is only 4 paragraphs long, and
2) At the time of my reply, this moron has been modded to +3 Insightful,
Galveston County Asst DA Michael Elliott explained, "The police in the game were staying, 'Stop, we have you surrounded. This is the police.' The burglar, unknowingly, thought this was the actual police and panicked
and also
Police arrested the four men. Samuel Woodrow received a five-year prison sentence this week. Ronnie Farris is serving four years. Lucas Griffin got probation. And Zachary Brandenburg's trial is in January.
It's one thing for a -1 post to say things like "wah, wah, wah, what are you talking about, this is stupid, i bet it's a hoax" but when people are burning real modpoints, it's just a travesty. Travesty I tell ya.
This struck me as somewhat peculiar, since these are the same rules as for knights in one-to-one combat in the days of yore. I can understand that a bunch of highly idealistic men with fifteen years of training would hold it dishonorable to answer an unarmed attack with a sword.
Yet I cannot for the life of me understand how the same rules would sneak their way into situations where a fifty year old lady is suddenly attacked by an eighteen-year old in her own home.
Is this the old English common law sneaking into a modern-day setting? Any English leglislative history-buffs out there that would know the answer to this?
Most likely the burglar didn't get scared of the sound from GTA because it sounded like cops. When he heard the sound he probably just figured out someone was at home and decided to escape. Burglars want to do their business alone... not when the house is packed with people.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
The story is a funny little urban anecdote, but that's it. Burglers get scared off by a lot of things - and they usually don't rob houses while there are people in them so any sign of life can often scare them off.
If this is news then I'm now waiting for a sensationalist story about a startled burgler or even a policeman on a routine call hearing the audio of some game character making a threat or seeing a high resolution gun pointed at him on a big screen and returning fire, hitting a kid.
It wasn't released last March, the poster put the wrong title.
Guess the editors aren't doing their job...
100% Insightful
Yes, and you're on an "American" (U.S.) site.
Pot.. kettle.. black.
Enough said.
So I'm trying to figure out... where did the person who posted this story get the idea that it was definitely from the San Andreas edition of GTA?
I haven't played any of the GYA games... is the sound effect being referred to by this story only in the SA version of GTA or something?
Certainly if it _was_ GTA:SA, then the story's a fake because I understand it wasn't available back in March.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yes, and you're on an "American" (U.S.) site. Pot.. kettle.. black. Enough said.
Throwaway and (very) tongue-in-cheek line. Enough said.
Aliens were trying to abduct my grandmother, but I was playing Halo and they heard me operating the Scorpion, so they ran away.
If I weren't an AC I'd mod you up for that.
People always complain about the extreme of laws but never seem to have the intelligence to ask why these laws are there.
The laws in question deal with two things. So called self-defence and playing your own judge.
There was time when property owners (the upper class/royalty) had plenty of rights. Steal or even just be on the land of the local landlord and you could be killed by his guards. Punishments was whatever the local lord saw fit to deal out.
This has changed. Now it is up to the police and court system to punish crimes.
Do criminals have rights? Well the problem is who defines who is a criminal? Is a peasant catching a deer to feed his family a criminal? Well yes and off with their head.
Nowadays we prefer the courtsystem to decide guilt and punishment. Sometimes this results in "unjust" decisions but what every intelligent person has to ask themselve is what would the alternative result in. Would you allow force to protect a car from being broken into?
My car is parked on parking lot and you standing next to it causes the alarm to go off. Luckily I got my gun and under your jobbo rule I blow him away. Oops turned out you just bumped my car with your elbow while opening your own. Oh well. At least your family has the right to shoot people who trespass on your grave eh?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Idealist and idealistic mean different things.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Seriously guys, the robbers were Mexican. If they heard sirens they would have thought it was a mariachi festival.
genius
That grammy must have a nice speaker system to fool someone that the cops aren't coming from a small box in the other room.
And a playstation two too, that's one hip grandma.
- shazow
The bad guys didn't use cheats? Obviously, they forgot about R1, R1, Circle, R2, Up, Down, Up, Down, Up, Down. That would have lowered the wanted level. What n00bs.
over and over. It starts losing all meaning -like banana phone.
Niggers, probably.
This seems like a text-book example of making the news rather than reporting the news. It sounds like someone decided to put their own twist or assumption at the forefront without having all the facts.
More likely, the burglars either realized someone was home, or else they recognized Grand Theft Auto and thought the percentage of meeting some psychotic kid (as a result of playing too many violent video games) just increased.
Either way, there's nothing unusual about this. The burglars entered, got spooked, and left. It happens often enough that it definitely doesn't deserve front-page status on Slashdot just because some kids were playing a video game.
As this story happenned in March, there is no way that it was San Andreas.
put the what in the where?
It's a trap!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+bur glarize&btnG=Google+Search
% 3A +burgled&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define
I don't know HTML so screw off.
This is a good excuse for all of the kids who want GTA but parents won't let them get it.
What does this have to do with someone breaking into your home and threatening youR life? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
If they had been playing GTA, they would have recognized the audio from the game.
You're also confusing cause and corrolation. You play violent games because you already enjoy or are attracted to that type of violence. If you weren't then the game would offend you and you wouldn't play it. I am attracted to games like Halo but the type of violence in GTA isn't appealing to me so I don't play it.
Games may increase someone's already existing level of aggression but they cannot create it from nothing and they certainly never CAUSE it.
If they don't have a spare gun handy, I'm sure they could just borrow one from the neighbors.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
If you actually RTFA you will see that this happened last March. Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas was not even out yet. Had to be either the orginal GTA or GTA: Vice City.
...you could have possibly made. This is NOT a question of pesants and king and deer. In case you didn't notice, that's not how the US is anymore. It's families living in small track homes or apartments.
The issue is, when an intruder breaks in and threatens your property, safety, life, or life of your family, what are you allowed to do? It's nice to sit reading Slashdot, sipping a cappuccino and say "Well the courts will deal out what punishment they deserve, you should just sit and let them have what they want." What if what they want is to rape your daughter? Or to beat your son until he can't walk? Do you just sit and let it happen or do you defend yourself and your family?
We aren't talking medieval land laws, we are talking basic ethics: Keep your hands off my shit and stay out of my house if you aren't invited.
What worries me is that if an ammendment can be legslated away "for the public good" what about the others? There are plenty of other ammendments that are troublesome, and the government has made attempts in the past and now to curtail.
If they legslate away the second, then that's great prescident for them to say "We need to get rid of the sixth ammendment. Look at all the drug dealers and evil doers that get off on technicalities because of their scumbag lawyers. The defandant doesn't need a lawyer, they just twist the truth. Our Great and Noble prosecutors are only concerned with the truth, so that's all that is needed. Don't worry, this won't be abused, it just helps make you safe."
I mean you can argue that basically any ammendment should be done away with to make us safer. In a perfect world, that'd be the case. If the government were composed of perfectly noble beings, than none of these rights would be necessary, because all they do is et in the way of the conviction of the guilty.
However, that's NOT the case. Governments are corrupt, all of them, to some degree because HUMANS are corrupt. There are next to no examples of perfectly noble human beings. So things like the Bill of Rights exist to control that, and to protect people by ensuring the government can't do whatever it wants.
Get yourself a woof-dog, meaning a largish dog that likes to bark when someone comes to the door. Doesn't need to be a mean dog, or an attack dog or anything like that, just not a tiny little rat dog and not a super quiet dog. Most largish dogs will fit the bill, since they'll woof at people coming by just by nature.
A dog woofing is as or more scary than an alarm because it not only alerts the owners, it could end up being the kind of dog that'll rip you apart. Most crooks will go elsewhere rather than risk it.
That and it's nice to have a dog that loves you no matter what come and greet you at the door every day. They are always happy to see you come home.
About 7 years back our house was nearly broken into. At the time I was an IRC junkie (running my own network and all). We used to play this wav file that had a guy screaming WAKEUP!!! and we would play it frequently late at night to get each others attention.
:)
For some reason all the thief did was open the window. For some reason he didn't go any further. Our best guess is when he was breaking in he heard a wave file yelling WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!
Ian
Guns oppress you!
Federal agents can hold American citizens indefinitely in a foriegn country without charges. They can read your email or listen to your phone conversations on little more than a whim. They can seize your property on mere suspicion of drug crimes, and you will have no recourse or compensation even if you are eventually acquitted.
The US government has already overstepped their constitutional bounds, and all our guns didn't stop it.
0 1 - just my two bits
for this and other things love this game ;) greets
John Romero ran in, pointed a gun at me, saw that I was playing Daikatana and ran off screaming, afraid I would laugh at him, because he was embarassed to be seen with his own game.
I asked as a child (when phones had rotary dials and pulse mechanisms) why 999 was for an emergency - where 111 would be much faster to dial.
The answer I was given was that in a dark smoke-filled house, when you find the phone, you stick your finger in the hole next to the fingerguard and that's the 9.
can anyone confirm this was the reason for choosing 999?
http://www.frugle.co.uk/
...robbers are always busy robbing people and not playing video games, 'cause otherwise this wouldn't have worked...
this story sounds like home alone, further confirmed by the fact that if the burgularizers were scared away, nobody would have known.
This story sounds completly made up.
I started my new years' resolution early and, wait for it, read the article! The story reports an event that happened in March, several months before San Andreas was released. The Assistant DA mentions they were apprehended by Playstation, so it could be GTA 1 (PS1), 2 (PS2),3 (PS2), or Vice City (PS2).
Somehow the parent is absolving the repeat burglers who abuse the law in its current state on the grounds of the state of things 500 years ago ?
And somehow some moderator as clueless as the parent gave him mod points ? wtf ?
Over and out.
I hoped he ran for some nearby trees or bushes when he heard the police helicopters closing in on him.
Dammit, where do I know that line from?!
It was in The Punisher (movie, don't know about the comics).
They actually had guns pointed at the children before turning tail and running off. Thus it wasn't knowing that there was someone in the house that scared them.
Further, they've been caught and charged. It seems likely that the distinction wrt what it was that lead them to run off would have come out by now.
Good to see George W. Bush partaking in the Internets.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
...to get GTA:San Andres since it was not available back in March when this attack happened. I would guess it was more likely GTA3 or GTA:Vice City.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
My guess: they're planning on overstepping their bounds.
I suppose in that case it will be okay if I snap somebody's neck by making them kiss the curb then...
I remember being told that it was the least likely to be 'dialed' by line noise and the like. I doubt that would be a problem now but both of these sound likely, especially when you go back to the earliest days.
..."-1, Fucking Gross" modifier, when you need it?!
i was just going to post that. I agree the poster is an idiot. GTA:SA came out 1-2 months ago, This happened back in MARCH.
Brings a new meaning to the term "savegame"!
You look beautiful! Incidentally, my favourite artist is Picasso.
http://www.phonebooth.us/phones/images/Web%20500DM .jpg
As you can see, 0 is the hole next to the fingerguard.
If drugs weren't so fucking expensive here that people wouldn't need to burglarize to pay for their crack?! Trust me, if you like to smoke a spliff now and again- you really don't want to come here.. -g
I use friend/foe to signal strong [dis]agreement instead of mod points. What else are f/f good for?
Fark usually scoops Slashdot by a few hours minimum. A few days typically.
The NRA would have a press release.
paintball
Keep the change, filthy animal.
It's likely an urban legend. even if they were scared by the sirens in the game, they likely weren't convinced by "come out with your hands up". Did they interview the guys who told why they fled the house? There's many things that could (and does) scare burglars out. Heck, I was looking for a freshly stolen car the other night, then found it abandoned in an alley, doors open. They bailed because they were spooked. I then realized that an ambulance, sirens wailing, had just driven down and stopped on the road next to the alley for an unrelated run. That's likely why they bailed, they thought they were spotted and being chased. But how easily we could make an urban legend out of that, and say some kids were playing GT3 hooked up to their 1500 watt stereo system, and that spooked them.
"Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity."
Where on earth would you live that someone wanting to steal your DVD player and the $50 worth of cash in your dresser would actually bother to bring a gun with them? If they come in and realize you're home, they just going to leave. Plus, try it in my house and you're going to get a jaw full of rottweiller teeth in your leg.
I just find it odd that even though property crime rates are about even in both Canada and the U.S., you see the following difference in homicide rates:
Homicide (per 100,000)
Canada: 1.9
U.S.: 5.6
That's even though Canadians are more urban, less pro-life, less fire-and-brimstone religious, just as multi-cultural, and own almost as many guns (about 70% of the U.S. rate of ownership - though it's admittedly hard to find exact rates).
Does anybody have ANY idea why the homicide rate is so much higher in the U.S. than other industrialized nations? I mean a real intelligent idea? Canadians and Americans just aren't that different, so why the huge difference in this one area? If someone could figure it out, the U.S. could stand to stop 10,000 homicides per year. If each life is 1 million dollars (per insurance rates), thats 10 billion in savings every year!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
That someone modded you up. Time to head for MetaMod and punish a few people for also failing to read the article.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To my English Ears 'burglarize' sounds like an abomination. However, I found an interesting article that suggest that both 'burgle' and 'burglarizer' both appeared in the language at roughly the same time, and that different sides of the Atlantic simply chose differently.
Washinton Post, 2042:
In recent developments, Bloomington, Illinois acquired nuclear weapons to defend itself.
Bloomington has announced that ..
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Burglarize? Is that even a word? The verb is burgle; hence, one who burgles is a burglar.
No, they have "we have you surrounded" sound.
I am not left-handed, either!
seems important to people who have no life but a pair of thumbs that could crush stones.
Yes, but to urban Legends get posted in the newspaper of the city mentioned in the article. Has a few more details in it than the posted story too
Because in the States, you have nothing to lose.
A) There's no social safety net so if you're sick or hungry, you're SOL.
B) The amount of jail time you get for an offence, it doesn't matter that much if you throw in some extra shit. Only the first murder costs you, they're all free after that.
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
It's like that line in the Home Alone movie. "Keep the change you filthy animal." And the pizza boy runs away with machine gun noises.
Sorry for adding so late.
Yes urban legends to end up all over the media in the place they supposedly happen, but only when the journalism of the local media is so craptastic they cant bother to actually check the facts.
In columbus, Ohio. A mall was the supposed site of a famous legend, the story spread and the local media printed it as truth. Then a couple days late when no one could verify in any way the contents of the legend hey started to try to backtrack on the fear they were capitaliziing on.
The UL in this case was an old 1800's era one.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.