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It's funny. Laugh. PlayStation (Games)

Robbers Scared by GTA 472

Posted by CmdrTaco from the crime-doesn't-pay dept.
HellSpam writes "Some robbers tried to burglarize a poor old lady and her 3 grandsons. Her grandsons happened to be playing Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas, and the sounds of the police from the game scared them away! From the article: "The police in the game were saying, 'Stop, we have you surrounded. This is the police.' The burglar, unknowingly, thought this was the actual police and panicked ... being apprehended by PlayStation." Now, no more saying games are bad for you..."
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Robbers Scared by GTA More

Robbers Scared by GTA

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  • and then ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by klang ( 27062 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @10:12AM (#11065937)
    the grandsons beat the shit out of the poor burglar..

  • This happened to me once (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nine Tenths of The W ( 829559 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @10:12AM (#11065944)
    A man ran in, pointed a gun at me, saw that I was playing Daikatana and ran off screaming.

  • What I wish... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 12, 2004 @10:13AM (#11065947)
    I wish the 3 kids then all picked up baseball bats and laid into the thief

    before taking off with his car and finding hookers.

  • Urm... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 12, 2004 @10:14AM (#11065951)
    What is the point of the word "burglarize"? "Burgle" means exactly the same thing.

  • Home Alone? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Peden ( 753161 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @10:15AM (#11065954) Homepage
    This sounds abit too much like something from the film "Home Alone" doesn't it?

  • Crappy journalism as usual (Score:5, Insightful)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @10:19AM (#11065979) Journal
    This was back in March according to the article so GTA:SA wasnt out yet! (must have been a previous one) The story is in the news because they just got sentenced to around 5 years each - kind of like a darwin award they're gonna get the piss taken out of them in jail.
  • this guy heard: "Stop, we have you surrounded. This is the police." and then ran away although he did not know the position of the assumed policemen?
    Not the brightest guy - he might have been easily shot if this had been real ...

  • Bad luck for the burglar (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Insipid Trunculance ( 526362 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @10:26AM (#11066015) Homepage
    that he was in the US.In our small country , England , the Govt would charge the old lady , for scaring the burglar.

    On a serious note , this is a very big issue.Unlike the US , where the rights of home owners using force against burglars are quite clear , in the UK this is a grey area.Home owners can use reasonable force only and that is decided by the courts.

    • Unfortunately the right of self defence is being erode here as well. Used to be if someone broke into your house it was grounds to use whatever force necessary to repell him. Now if looks like he might not have been directly threatening you or someone else you wih rape murder or bodily harm you stand a good chance of being charged and possibly convicted.
      Still if someone breaks into my house I'm NOT going to try and find out if he just wan't to take the tv and my cash or my head. The old saying goes: 'b

      • Re:Bad luck for the burglar (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @11:47AM (#11066365)
        The right of self-defenc(s)e (just being PC) is being eroded in most countries as an artifact of an encroaching police state. I've been saying this for decades: if citizens have no legal right to defend themselves, the government will next conclude that they have no need of anything that would help them defend themselves. Like guns. Is the government (any government) really so concerned that we might accidentally pop a burglar? Do they really care if we accidentally shoot ourselves in the {insert body part here}? Do they really care how many shooting victems show up on the 5 o'clock news? Sure, individual lawmakers may be, but government as a whole has other ideas.

        The unrelenting anti-gun bias is just a smokescreen, whose sole intent is to convince us to allow yet another part of the Constitution to effectively die. What they are afraid of is an armed, independent population that would cheerfully shoot any government official that oversteps his bounds. And why would they care about that? My guess: they're planning on overstepping their bounds.

        Oh I know, tinfoil hat stuff ... but I'll say this. After four+ years of George Bush at lot of folks that used to dismiss such views as paranoid are giving them a second look. A lot of anti-gun types make such a big deal about how the "right to bear arms" really isn't a right to bear arms, etc. etc., continually trying to reinterpret the Founders' intentions. But their intention was pellucidly clear: the right was given to us as a deterrent (and last-ditch defense) against an abusive government. It can happen here, folks, and a lot of people that fought so hard to eliminate guns from our society may one day wish they had one. A gun, that is.

        Let me add, just to eliminate any confusion, that I'm not a member of the NRA nor have I ever owned any firearm more powerful than a BB gun. But I want the right to acquire one if I feel sufficiently threatened (by anyone or anything.) That's what the Founding Fathers wanted, and so far as I'm aware there's been no Constitutional Amendment that says otherwise. The recent history of the United States, in particular, has been one of steadily increasing government power, going hand-in-hand with this simpleminded idea that if we could just ban all guns, life would be so much better. Unfortunately, that goes against the history of such things, and really places more trust in our government that it currently deserves.
        • You might like this article. [caseyscrib.com]
        • Dude I have to move to the US of A.

        • Along those lines (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @04:32PM (#11067783)
          What worries me is that if an ammendment can be legslated away "for the public good" what about the others? There are plenty of other ammendments that are troublesome, and the government has made attempts in the past and now to curtail.

          If they legslate away the second, then that's great prescident for them to say "We need to get rid of the sixth ammendment. Look at all the drug dealers and evil doers that get off on technicalities because of their scumbag lawyers. The defandant doesn't need a lawyer, they just twist the truth. Our Great and Noble prosecutors are only concerned with the truth, so that's all that is needed. Don't worry, this won't be abused, it just helps make you safe."

          I mean you can argue that basically any ammendment should be done away with to make us safer. In a perfect world, that'd be the case. If the government were composed of perfectly noble beings, than none of these rights would be necessary, because all they do is et in the way of the conviction of the guilty.

          However, that's NOT the case. Governments are corrupt, all of them, to some degree because HUMANS are corrupt. There are next to no examples of perfectly noble human beings. So things like the Bill of Rights exist to control that, and to protect people by ensuring the government can't do whatever it wants.

    • Unlike the US , where the rights of home owners using force against burglars are quite clear , in the UK this is a grey area.Home owners can use reasonable force only and that is decided by the courts.

      The U.S. is a nation composed of 50 states, each with its own laws governing self-defense in the home. There are states with the so-called "castle laws" which allow the use of deadly force inside the home, but even these states might have a "retreat requirement" which requires that the homeowner retreat to

    • Perhaps not all that much of a change:

      SERGEANT: When a felon's not engaged in his employment

      POLICE: His employment
      SERGEANT: Or maturing his felonious little plans,
      POLICE: Little plans,
      SERGEANT: His capacity for innocent enjoyment
      POLICE: 'Cent enjoyment
      SERGEANT: Is just as great as any honest man's.
      POLICE: Honest man's
      SERGEANT: Our feelings we with difficulty smother
      POLICE: 'Culty smother
      SERGEANT: When constabulary duty's to be done.
      POLICE: To be done.
      SERGEANT: Ah, take one consideration

    • Depends on where in the US you are.

      I was in California a few months ago, on a business trip. The topic of discussion was a homeowner on trial for attempted murder. Somebody broke in and threathened the guy, said he was going to beat the crap out of him. The homeowner had a gun -- legally owned it. He pointed it at the intruder and, when the guy still advanced & threatened him, the homeowner shot the guy.

      The prosecuter said this was unecessary force. The intruder was unarmed and the homeowner shouldn

    • Yeah the opposite was so much better (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @02:10PM (#11067084) Journal
      Where a landowner could just kill a dirty peasant coming on their land or have them flogged to within an inch of their lives.

      People always complain about the extreme of laws but never seem to have the intelligence to ask why these laws are there.

      The laws in question deal with two things. So called self-defence and playing your own judge.

      There was time when property owners (the upper class/royalty) had plenty of rights. Steal or even just be on the land of the local landlord and you could be killed by his guards. Punishments was whatever the local lord saw fit to deal out.

      This has changed. Now it is up to the police and court system to punish crimes.

      Do criminals have rights? Well the problem is who defines who is a criminal? Is a peasant catching a deer to feed his family a criminal? Well yes and off with their head.

      Nowadays we prefer the courtsystem to decide guilt and punishment. Sometimes this results in "unjust" decisions but what every intelligent person has to ask themselve is what would the alternative result in. Would you allow force to protect a car from being broken into?

      My car is parked on parking lot and you standing next to it causes the alarm to go off. Luckily I got my gun and under your jobbo rule I blow him away. Oops turned out you just bumped my car with your elbow while opening your own. Oh well. At least your family has the right to shoot people who trespass on your grave eh?

  • ...is the burglar got away because the cop that was chasing him ducked when he heard "eat this, pig!"

    (Sounds like an urban legend to me...)

  • He had been carrying a gun, panicked and started shooting.
    • Well, it's a Good Thing that the home owner was disarmed and helpless at least. That way she could have reasoned with the criminals and called on the authorities to resolve the situation.

      After all, aren't those thieves just victims of society? Clearly they need that old woman's belongings much more than she does or they wouldn't have attempted to steal them, presuming that is what 'burglarize' meant in this case.

      I realise that the story didn't say either way about her gun ownership, or lack thereof. This
  • The verb is 'burgle', and one who burgles is a burglar.

    You don't call a burglar a 'burglarizer', do you?

    Cripes!

  • Updated "Hannah and the Whistling Teakettle"? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Am I the only one that remembers this from elementary school?(From Amazon.com [amazon.com])

    Hannah's grandmother, a loving granny, but a hard case when it comes to accepting gifts, learns the pleasures and benefits of receiving in this story of expectations. Hannah is on a visit to her grandfolks and their soda fountain in the Bronx. She has brought along a whistling teapot as a present for her grandmother, who routinely returns most gifts as frivolous. That appears to be the fate of this one as well when grandma gives i

  • Along the same lines.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by niew ( 133188 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @11:03AM (#11066163)
    A friend of mine was kicked back on his couch in his boxers watching a movie (home theater type setup)...

    There was a knock at the door, he opened it a crack to answer it (he was in his boxers). The door was forced open and he was pinned to the floor by a bunch of heavily armed cops!

    It seems a neighboor had heard somebody yell "Everybody get down!" followed by some gun shots, put 1 and 1 together and came up with 3...

  • This could help in other dangerous situations (Score:5, Funny)

    by aiabx ( 36440 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @11:09AM (#11066194)
    I'm looking for a video game that randomly says "Thank you for ordering the Anniversary Special Bouquet. It will be ready for pickup shortly".
    -aiabx

  • Home Alone (Score:5, Funny)

    by BitwizeGHC ( 145393 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @11:13AM (#11066217) Homepage
    "I'm gonna give you to the count of ten to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property before I pump yer guts full of lead. One... two... TEN!" *ACKACKACKACKACKACK* *pizza guy runs away all scared*

  • Old ladies (Score:3, Funny)

    by geoffeg ( 15786 ) <geoffegNO@SPAMsloth.org> on Sunday December 12, 2004 @11:52AM (#11066392) Homepage
    >Some robbers tried to burglarize a poor old lady and her 3

    Why are old ladies always poor? Do non-poor ladies never get robbed (they should, they have more money).

  • In Other News... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dystopian Rebel ( 714995 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @12:01PM (#11066433) Journal
    The burglars who ran away are suing the owners of the home, the children, and Sony for causing them excessive job stress.

  • Come on people! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fulkkari ( 603331 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @12:21PM (#11066551)

    Most likely the burglar didn't get scared of the sound from GTA because it sounded like cops. When he heard the sound he probably just figured out someone was at home and decided to escape. Burglars want to do their business alone... not when the house is packed with people.

    • Re:Come on people! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Feanturi ( 99866 )
      The story says they came in and pointed guns, and that there were four of them. They weren't sneaking into anywhere, it was a home invasion.
    • Uhm, if you RTFA, you'd see that they state the burglars heard the police sounds from the game and fled. Great going, genius.

      And through the great Slashdot moderation system your post gets moderated "insightful".

  • This is news? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Fractal Dice ( 696349 )

    The story is a funny little urban anecdote, but that's it. Burglers get scared off by a lot of things - and they usually don't rob houses while there are people in them so any sign of life can often scare them off.

    If this is news then I'm now waiting for a sensationalist story about a startled burgler or even a policeman on a routine call hearing the audio of some game character making a threat or seeing a high resolution gun pointed at him on a big screen and returning fire, hitting a kid.

  • It wasn't released last March, the poster put the wrong title.

    Guess the editors aren't doing their job...

  • The article doesn't say GTA:SA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Sunday December 12, 2004 @01:25PM (#11066871) Journal
    According to the Article, the game was "Grand Theft Auto". That's it... no suffix.

    So I'm trying to figure out... where did the person who posted this story get the idea that it was definitely from the San Andreas edition of GTA?

    I haven't played any of the GYA games... is the sound effect being referred to by this story only in the SA version of GTA or something?

    Certainly if it _was_ GTA:SA, then the story's a fake because I understand it wasn't available back in March.

  • And in other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 12, 2004 @01:49PM (#11066983)
    Aliens were trying to abduct my grandmother, but I was playing Halo and they heard me operating the Scorpion, so they ran away.

  • Similiar Experience with IRC Wave Files (Score:3, Funny)

    by z4ce ( 67861 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @04:37PM (#11067802)
    About 7 years back our house was nearly broken into. At the time I was an IRC junkie (running my own network and all). We used to play this wav file that had a guy screaming WAKEUP!!! and we would play it frequently late at night to get each others attention.

    For some reason all the thief did was open the window. For some reason he didn't go any further. Our best guess is when he was breaking in he heard a wave file yelling WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! :)

    Ian

  • Where could this be? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Monday December 13, 2004 @01:25AM (#11070304) Homepage
    Where on earth would you live that someone wanting to steal your DVD player and the $50 worth of cash in your dresser would actually bother to bring a gun with them? If they come in and realize you're home, they just going to leave. Plus, try it in my house and you're going to get a jaw full of rottweiller teeth in your leg.

    I just find it odd that even though property crime rates are about even in both Canada and the U.S., you see the following difference in homicide rates:

    Homicide (per 100,000)
    Canada: 1.9
    U.S.: 5.6

    That's even though Canadians are more urban, less pro-life, less fire-and-brimstone religious, just as multi-cultural, and own almost as many guns (about 70% of the U.S. rate of ownership - though it's admittedly hard to find exact rates).

    Does anybody have ANY idea why the homicide rate is so much higher in the U.S. than other industrialized nations? I mean a real intelligent idea? Canadians and Americans just aren't that different, so why the huge difference in this one area? If someone could figure it out, the U.S. could stand to stop 10,000 homicides per year. If each life is 1 million dollars (per insurance rates), thats 10 billion in savings every year!

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