Mentally Disabled Florida Man Gets Beaten for Grand Theft Auto 5

A man named Rohan Dawkings was robbed on his way home from purchasing his copy of GTA V. He is a student at ACCESS, which is a program for adults with intellectual disabilities. The thieves wanted his copy of the game and were disgusting enough to get it through an innocent man.

Dawkins was given a new copy by some good Samaritan due to coverage on the local news. They saw the story and felt compelled to make amends for this terrible wrong doing by two individuals, Tommy Davis and Adele Jones, who have since been arrested.

The problem with society isn’t the games

I bring you this story because reading this prompted me to touch on the subject of violence in video games. Many people might read this story and think that this is just another example of GTA V’s violent content influencing the real world. I want to say that this story alone proves that the games are NOT the issue of societies anger problems. For the two people who were immoral enough to beat up a mentally disabled man for a game, there were even more people who offered up their copies of the game. Complete strangers offered to take care of the man’s bus pass for the next year and a local GameStop offered to give him a collector’s edition of GTA V.

Also after reading some of the comments on the article I feel that people think that this type of violent behavior is somehow the norm. The different news sources report on these things because they are rare which unfortunately makes this kind of thing seem like it happens all the time. 

• “This is why I can not get down with the current consoler crowd. Consoles are disgusting.”
• “The issue of what happened to this young man aside, let’s think about the state of a society that actually markets a game entitled “Grand Theft Auto”. Does anyone besides me have a probe with that???”
• “It’s funny, in a way. The way this guy was robbed is similar to how the game is played. I guess I find it ironic. Having said that, I’m a 40 year old who loves these types of games. All stupid fun, but I also know the difference between “cartoon” violence and real life.”

My point is this…

I just want to remind everyone that for as many bad people there are in the world, there are just as many good. All of those good people play GTA V as well and they are decent and have enough common sense to know the distinction between real world and fantasy.  So before people jump to the typical “video games made them do it” routine, I just want them to at least acknowledge that there are good people in this story too.