Mass Shooting in Jacksonville Leaves Two Dead at Madden 19 Tournament
On Sunday afternoon, gunshots rang out at a Jacksonville mall during a Madden 19 tournament leaving three people dead, including the gunman and another nine people injured along with two more injured during the chaos of the events.
The tournament was being live streamed on a gaming site known as Twitch. As a match between 22-year-old gamer, Elijah Clayton who went by the gamer tag "Trueboy" and Wesley Gittens who was known as "Joe Rice" gunshots can be heard in the background of the live stream before one of the controllers disconnects. Screams of terror can still be heard as shots continue to ring out over the live stream before it eventually cuts off.
When everything was over, two of the competitors in the tournament had been killed. Elijah "Trueboy" Clayton who was participating in the match being streamed and Taylor "SpotMePlzzz" Robertson. Shortly before the shots can be heard on the stream, a red dot can be seen on the table in the picture before jumping to Clayton's neck and chest area. The live stream cut away from the picture of the two competitors in the match just mere moments before the first shots can be heard.
The gunman was David Katz, a 22-year-old man from Baltimore, Maryland. Katz was also participating in the Madden 19 tournament in Jacksonville and had previously won a Madden Championship in 2017 in the Buffalo Bills Madden tournament. According to competitor Steven "Steveyj" Javaruski, Katz "targeted a few people" before he turned the gun on himself. While unconfirmed, it is believed that Katz had lost a match earlier that day which eliminated him from the tournament and caused him to go on the rampage.
Both of the victims in the attack were well-known in the Madden community. Elijah Clayton was an up and coming Madden player from Woodland Hills, California who was considered " consistently one of the best in competitive Madden" on his player profile for EA Sports. He had made $51,000 in prize winnings during the Madden Championship Series Era and made five consecutive EA Major Live Events going back to Madden 17.
Taylor Robertson was a married man with a young son from Ballard, West Virginia. The 27-year-old competed in Madden tournaments to help support his family and had won 72% of his matches in Live Event Head-to-Head. He earned $80,500 in prize winnings during the Madden Championship Series Era and was described as "one of the toughest opponents in competitive Madden" on his EA Sports profile.
Both men will be greatly missed in the gaming community and their legacies never forgotten as another unspeakable tragedy of gun violence rocks the United States of America once again.
Questions or comments? Email [email protected] and follow @mtvhottakes on Instagram and Facebook to know when new stories are posted.
