Those who pooh-pooh complaints that violent video games lead to real crimes should stop reading this now.
A 38-year-old Anaheim man claims the Grand Theft Auto video game inspired him to rob a bank Friday.
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Ian Jade Stone told a teller at the U.S. Bank branch at 5701 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Anaheim, that captors strapped a bomb to him and if he didn't leave the bank with cash, they would make it go boom, according to the FBI.
Stone left with some money, but Anaheim Police Lt. Tim Schmidt told City News Service an informant's tip led to the alleged robber's arrest Saturday in San Luis Obispo, where he apparently has family.
While giving “a full confession,” Stone explained he got the idea for the bank robbery from a version of Grand Theft Auto, FBI Special Agent Chris Gicking told the news service. I'm pretty sure I saw a scene like that in a recent movie also.
Held on $50,000 bail, Stone won't be able to spring himself with the bank loot. By the time of his arrest, the FBI agent explained, he'd given most of it away.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.