A 16-year-old Chilean boy has been accused of murdering his 18-year-old brother in a fight over a Sony PlayStation console.
According to police officials, the teenager and his brother had been arguing over the use of the PlayStation unit – no number is given, but we’re assuming it was a PS3 – when the confrontation turned violent. After the elder brother turned on the PlayStation without his brother’s permission, the younger sibling became enraged. He allegedly grabbed a knife from the kitchen, stabbing his brother in the chest and killing him.
The young man told police that the argument “got out of hand” – no, really? – and could face five years in prison under the charges if convicted.
While the report focuses the argument around the PlayStation console that does admittedly seem to have been the focal point, that can’t be all that was at work here. According to the BBC, the brothers had been abandoned by their mother and lived in care for 10 years before being taken in by a Belgian woman – who unfortunately was visiting her home country at the time of the murder.
Seeing as how this abandonment happened when they were, at the absolute eldest, 6 and 8 respectively, I don’t think it’s hard to imagine how that could have had an affect on their psyches growing up.
It’s still a tragedy, but why blame the piece of black plastic in the living room?
