Buffalo Bills
The man who defeated David Katz in a Jacksonville, Florida video game tournament told a Florida television station that Katz was acting oddly during the tournament and refused to shake his hand.
“I was actually one of the people who beat him,” the gamer told Action News Jax. You can watch video of his interview below. “There was another guy…who beat him. We’re both still here. I felt that he was targeting, but I don’t think it was the people who beat him.”
“I was actually one of the people that beat him…”
GAMER and WITNESS talks about suspected #TheLandingMassShooting shooter David Katz. Says he was acting ‘weird’ all weekend.
#BREAKING #Jacksonville #JacksonvilleLanding #JacksonvilleLandingShooting
@ActionNewsJax @WOKVNews
The gamer told the television station that David Katz was a “well-known competitor” who seemed to be acting in a “premeditated” fashion. In the interview with Action News Jax, the gamer described how Katz was acting oddly during the tournament. “He had shades on. He didn’t speak to anybody. After we played, I went to shake his hand and tell him good game and he just looked at me and didn’t say anything.” Katz was wearing the same outfit that he had on the day before, the gamer told the TV station.
David Katz, who was identified by authorities as the gunman in the mass shooting at a Jacksonville, Florida video game tournament, was from Baltimore, Maryland. Horrifically, the sounds of the shooting were captured on live stream video, which you can watch later in this article (but be aware that it’s disturbing.)
Katz shot and killed two other gamers with a semi-auto handgun with laser sight before killing himself. The shooting broke out on August 26, 2018 after witnesses say Katz, 24, lost during the tournament.
Baltimore police told The Baltimore Sun that they were assisting other law enforcement agencies in the investigation, and the newspaper reported that authorities were searching a residence in the 1200 block of Harbor Island Walk in Baltimore, Maryland.
Jacksonville authorities confirmed in a news conference that Katz was from Maryland and said he had traveled to Florida for the Madden tournament.
Neighbors of the residence told the newspaper that federal authorities asked them if “ammunition had ever been mistakenly delivered to their home.” Another neighbor told The Sun it wasn’t clear whether Katz still lived at the residence but that he had done so when he was younger. However, he had seen him “coming and going” from the house.
The mass shooting occurred at a Madden video game tournament in Jacksonville and left three people dead and more wounded. The casualty count includes the shooter, who killed himself at the scene. The two victims have not yet been formally named.
Katz was fairly well established on the professional gamer scene. In one YouTube video, Katz told broadcaster Steve Tasker, “Personally I think I’m one of the better players and I like to let my game prove that.”
David Katz, the suspect in the Jacksonville shooting, has been playing Madden competitively for several years using the names MrSlicedBread, Bread, ravenschamp and ravens2012champ. He won a Buffalo Bills Madden club championship in 2017: t.co/59AVRvmjR8
He went by a variety of gamer names, among them Bread, Ravenschamp, and TREXHAVAHARTATAK. He was the winner of the Madden 17 Bills Club Championship in February of 2017 in Buffalo, New York. A video from the tournament captures an announcer saying of David Katz, “He is not here to make friends. He’s all business, he’s focused, and to even get him to open up to talk to you about anything – it’s like pulling teeth, man.”
EASports’ website says of that 2017 tournament, “In what some are calling the most exciting moment in all the 2017 NFL Club Series Championships, David ‘Bread’ Katz won with a walk-off victory by completing an unbelievable pass as time expired to be crowned Buffalo Bills Champion. The crowd at 716 Food and Sport in Buffalo, NY was amazed with the clutch execution in the 4th quarter!”
VIDEO of 24-year-old David Katz, the Baltimore gamer believed to have been the shooter at the Jacksonville Landing. Sheriff says he killed himself. Listen to how announcers describe him.
A video clip circulating after the Madden shooting in Jacksonville, Florida appears to show a red laser pointer landing on one gamer and captured screams and the sounds of gunfire. Be forewarned that the video is disturbing. You can watch it here:
The video clip horrified people who saw it. “Oh my god there was a laser you can see clearly in this video. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the other affected by this disgusting horrible senseless tragedy things need to change in this country,” wrote one person on Twitter.
Here is the clip in which the red laser pointer appears:
“Oh f**, what’d he shoot me with?” one victim yells out in the video. That person’s identity is not yet clear.
You can read more about the Jacksonville shooting here. The shooting occurred at a qualifying event for the Madden 19 Tournament that was being held at the GLHF Game Bar.
