The trigger-happy, endless stream of Los Santos Police Department officers aren’t the only cops talking about the streets of Los Santos, as leaders of local police agencies say there’s nothing wrong with an officer playing the controversial game Grand Theft Auto.
“As long as they understand the difference and they’re able to separate reality from a video game, I don’t think there’s a problem with that,” Ohio University Police Chief Andrew Powers said.
The fifth edition of the award winning series, Grand Theft Auto V, was released last month and grossed over $1 billion in three days. The series made headlines as people have attempted to recreate scenes from the game, killing officers in the process.
“There’s nothing wrong with officers playing video games even if the role they’re playing is one of a criminal,” Powers said, adding that it’s important that players — officers or not — should be able to contextualize their lives.
“Video games in the context that they’re playing are just video games,” Powers said. “I think the problem is not necessarily game itself but the people that don’t know what’s a game and reality.”
Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly said he couldn’t recall anyone locally who went out and stole a vehicle or committed another serious crime because they played a video game.
“For a person that watches a movie or plays a video game who goes out and shoots a bunch of people or steals cars or something, I believe that it’s an influence,” Kelly said, “but I don’t believe that it’s the thing that influenced them to go out and do something like that.”
Just as anything else that can be construed as negative, it’s dependent on how the game player processes the information, Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said.
“Most people can play that game and understand those police officers aren’t how they’re portrayed in a game like that,” Pyle said. “Also, most people can play Modern Warfare 3 and not pretend that they are true soldiers. I think most people understand that is fiction and not reality. But, there is a very small minority that internalizes it differently, and it becomes problematic.”
However, Pyle believes this is true of any kind of media, whether it be video games, music, literature, television or film.
“I think there are a small percentage of people in the world that are susceptible to a media brainwashing,” Pyle said. “People are susceptible to all types of media in that regard. So I don’t see (GTA) as any different.”
Police officers as a whole aren’t against the game, Kelly said.
“I really don’t think we’ll ever come to the point where people are going to be sitting around and watching bible studies on video games,” Kelly said. “People look for action and the extremes in these movies and video games, and they’re finding them.”
as299810@ohiou.edu
@akarl_smith
