If you’re wondering where your teen is really doing this summer, relax. They are locked on a remote island.
killing each other.
Twenty-seven years ago, a young video game developer named Tim Sweeney built Epic Games in his parents’ basement. For years, the company produced minor hits. Last year, Sweeney released an online game called Fortnite. Players parachute onto a deserted island, and then proceed to kill each other.
Fortnite is now in its fifth edition. But this year Sweeney did the unexpected.
He freed the game. And it made him a billionaire. Players play for free, but they must use real money in the outside world to buy currency to be used inside the game to buy weapons and, of course, spend their entire summer trying to kill the other guy. Fortnight is on its way to earn $2 billion this year.
And that’s what your kids are doing.
Tiffany Floyd was 16 years old. She starred in plays and played basketball with her summer theater camp so well that her coaches thought she would excel in the sport in college and beyond.
Nailah Linear was also 16 years old. She loved dancing and planned to try out for her high school’s cheerleading team.
Lamourie Gaithings was 17 years old. He never missed a fishing trip with his father and wanted to be a Louisville police officer when he grew up.
None of them will ever get those opportunities.
All three were among 17 children and teens killed in Louisville so far this year, the youngest casualties in a devastating public health crisis from runaway gun violence.
More children were killed from January 1 to August 11 than in the whole of 2020, when 16 children and teens under 18 were the victims of the city’s record-high 173 homicides.
Everyone died of bullets except this year’s child. At least 65 other teenagers were injured in the shootout.
Legend Talifero, a 4-year-old boy who loved dinosaurs and basketball, was sleeping on the floor in an apartment in Kansas City, Missouri, when he was shot on June 29, 2020. A person who was involved in a dispute. Legend’s father awaits trial for second-degree murder. A probable cause statement said the suspected shooter was trying to find Legend’s father after that brawl.
“Why do we have to resort to violence because we are insane?” Legend’s mother, Charon Powell, asks. “What other way can we find a problem without harming anyone?”
In St. Louis, 9-year-old Kaion Greene died in March after someone set her family’s car on fire. There is a 17-year-old accused in this crime. Police and prosecutors declined to discuss a motive or say what led to the shooting.
In May, two Minneapolis children were shot and killed. Nine-year-old Trinity Ottoson-Smith was shot in the head while jumping on a trampoline. Police said she was the unintended victim of a bullet shot aimed at someone else. No arrests have been made. Six-year-old Ania Allen was shot when her mother drove her car through a gunfight.
On October 2 in Milwaukee, an 11-year-old girl was killed and a 5-year-old girl was injured when someone shot into their family’s car from another vehicle. Police did not say whether they knew the motive and were seeking information from the public.
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