Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

Debunking the "Halo" Death

by Dick Ward September 16th 2008 4:09 PM CDT24 Comments

It’s a headline you might expect to see on Fox News, or perhaps read in some ill-informed newspaper, but no. This sensationalist title appeared on Kotaku. As the title states, accompanying this was a blip about how Joshua Nimm, an 11 year old child from Wisconsin, apparently killed himself while "imitating Halo".

Again and again the generally, uninformed media write stories like this without any of the basics of reporting. Facts are completely ignored and wild speculation is reported as truth. Anyone who understands basic logical thinking or simply a person with a decent bullshit detector can see right through it, but sadly, not that many people are graced with such virtues. Sadly, the local paper you'd expect was not the only one guilty of poor reporting, but one of the gaming community’s most beloved sources for news played a role as well.

The following is a response to an article written by the Watertown Daily Times; a small newspaper which reported on the story. Not a huge or reputable paper, I know, but accountability must lie somewhere, and it lies with the originator of the story. I’ve gone ahead and picked out the pertinent parts of this story for your reading pleasure. The same exact inaccuracies can be found in any other article/report on the topic in the media (and yes, even Kotaku), but I am just using this particular one as an example. Article quotes are italicized.


“We are ruling that it is an accidental shooting,” Jefferson County Detective Sgt. Larry Lee said. “The child was getting ready for school and decided to skip school.”

The kid’s eleven, and apparently he decided to skip school? The article seems to indicate that the boy was found by his father (it says with, but that’s just confusing), but doesn’t give any indication of when. Was the father home at the time? Why was he able to skip school after ‘deciding’ to? That's just not normal behavior.

He was playing video games and we found out he had a .22 caliber rifle that belongs to him.

I wonder which one of these was the real problem: the fact that an 11 year-old child was playing video games or that he had possession of a firearm. Really, a rifle that belongs to him? In Wisconsin (where this took place). a rifle can’t be owned by anyone under the age of 18. Giving a firearm to someone under the age of 18 is a felony and their possession is considered to be a misdemeanor.

He had access to the rifle and a magazine was kept somewhere else by his parents. He was familiar with the rifle and had been shooting it a couple of times a month - he lived out in the country, so that was nothing unusual.”

It should be unusual, according to that silly little law at least. Wisconsin law states that no one under the age of 12 is allowed to hunt with a firearm, even if they are accompanied by an adult. Leaving a firearm within the reach of a child under the age of 14 is a misdemeanor in itself, so fault goes to the parents.

Lee said it appeared, following the department's investigation, that after playing a combat video game called “Halo,” Nimm took the gun and tried to recreate some of the things that had occurred in the game.

Like the scene where Master Chief turns a gun on himself? The scene where the Arbiter eats a bullet? Is this some of the new DLC I haven't played yet?

The more concerning thing here should be that someone apparently saw an 11 year old kid playing with a gun and ‘recreating scenes from Halo’ and did nothing about it. This isn’t some Nerf toy or even some “You’ll shoot your eye out” style BB gun. This is a .22, a gun created to kill things.

Anyone that’s taken a firearm course can easily state the first rule of handling a gun: always point the gun in a safe direction. In other words, never point a gun at something unless you want to kill it. If you don’t know this bit, you shouldn’t have a gun (even though an 11 year-old shouldn't have a gun period).

With an automatic rifle, Lee said there can sometimes be confusion over whether it contains a magazine or not, and this confusion likely led to Nimm's death.

This just gets confusing. The kid had a fully automatic .22? Unless I’m mistaken, fully automatic weapons are generally illegal in the US without special permits. So apparently, this rifle that belonged to an 11 year old boy is also fully automatic.

“He took the magazine out and forgot to eject a round that was in the chamber. He probably thought the gun was unloaded,” Lee said.

Again, we go back to the rules. “always treat a gun as if it is loaded.” It’s a pretty steadfast rule that anyone allowed near a gun should know. I’m not saying it’s the kid’s fault, I’m just saying he apparently had no idea how to take care of a weapon that was reportedly his. You really can't expect someone so young to know so in the first place.

Sgt. Larry Lee said the incident shows the need for extreme safety with firearms. “The safety issue with weapons is so important. People should always treat them like they are loaded,” he said.

See? The cop says so too.

Nimm was a student at Johnson Creek Middle School. Funeral arrangements are pending at Hafemeister Funeral Home in Watertown.

Here's the dark reality: a child is dead because was in reach of a gun, with a complete lack of education and security on handling firearms. Parental neglect certainly took a front seat in this one. Not only was Joshua left alone from school, but he was somehow able to access a fully automatic rifle as well as ammunition for the gun.

Additionally, if there were indeed no witnesses, then the Halo link is one of two options. The first is that this link is mere speculation, having absolutely nothing to do with the story and was just brought up by a bad reporter for no reason. This is the best possible option: propaganda is the media's bread and water these days.

The second and worst, is that the parents may have known of the child’s propensity to ‘reenact Halo’ with a real firearm and apparently did nothing about it. This is the thought that makes me sick to my stomach.

Obviously, this situation is bad: a child is dead and it’s a horrible tragedy. His family and members of community must be reeling from this, and certainly should be. This is a terrible occurrence, one that should never, ever, have to happen. None the less, this isn’t an excuse for journalistic integrity to go out the window though.

The article didn’t outright implicate games in the accidental death, but they mentioned them enough for people to make the link. People like Luke Plunkett of Kotaku, who should really know better, picked up the story and reported it as a Halo related death. Garbage like this can cripple our industry. and spits on journalism. If gaming sites post this stuff up, then how far can the mainstream keep going?

Rest in Peace, Joshua.