kill because of poker

this is an article i read from pokerkingblog
i found it very interesting and thought i would share it would everyone


2008-02-19 08:51:01
Florida Man Kills Three After Being "Cheated" In "High Stakes" Poker Game


You may want to think twice before inviting Duane Crittenden II to your home game.

The 28 year old Florida man was arrested over the weekend after stabbing and shooting three other players who participated in an all-night private poker game.

According to local police, the game started up on Friday afternoon and lasted until around 6-7 am on Saturday morning. Police also said that it was a "high stakes" poker game.

Apparently Crittenden left the game "enraged" after feeling that he had been "cheated". He came back at around 9 am, and brought with him a gun and a knife.

He proceeded to stab Robert E. Ford multiple times and shoot him in the head twice. I am assuming that Ford must have cracked Crittenden's pocket aces or something, because it seems like he received some extra special treatment when he was murdered. The other two victims, Richard Smith and Jerome Henry, were both shot once in the head. This triple homicide occurred over the weekend just outside the city of Palatka in Florida.

After the murders, Crittenden scooped up as much cash as he could from the game and took off. Police estimate that he took between $2,000 to $9,000.

Police initiated a massive manhunt and soon found Crittenden. Police have said that the motive for the murders was that Crittenden had felt "cheated" by the other men in the game, and decided to exact some revenge. It's unknown whether the men had actually been cheating Crittenden II or whether he had just succumbed to some particularly bad beats and lost his mind.

All four men involved had criminal histories. Crittenden led the pack with 18 convictions, but police said that none of the convictions had been for anything "violent".

Just another reason that you should think twice before playing in a private poker game. Not only do you have to worry about police breaking down the door and raiding your $1/$2 private No Limit Hold'em game or armed robbers breaking down your door and stealing all of your bankrolls, but you also have to worry about homicidal players flipping out and shooting everyone after taking a bad beat. Pokerstars sounds pretty good to me right about now

what do yall think of the whole situation?

There are certain people out there who's particular brand of psychosis leads them to become enraged at any perceived slight, whether it be a bad poker beat or simply being cut off on the freeway. And it seems more often, here in the US at least, that killing has become the solution to every problem.

That's a ridiculous story. Three murders over what probably was no more than $9,000. Is your life worth more than $3k? I would hope so - but when you're dealing with a maniac (in this case, literally in the poker sense), there is nothing to reason with.

It *does* go to show you that you should never play in a home game with people you are unfamiliar with. Who knows who's crazy? Would you want someone like that in your home? Hell no. Another reason for gun control, IMO.

And if you guys ever get the chance to meet TJ Cloutier, he told me a couple of stories about backroom poker in Oklahoma and Texas that scared the be-jesus outta me.

Reminds me of the poker game in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"...

"Are you Lucky?"

Talk about "TILT" wow

Guns dont kill people, lunatics with no respect for human life kill people.
And he did stab the guy, so after we take the gun, better start taking knives too.

Guess i better start keeping an eye on the guys at my home game lol.
Make sure they all look "stable".

I take gun control in two ways. Do I believe we should be allowed to have guns? Yes! Do I believe EVERYONE should have guns? Hell no.

Crazy people + gun = bad
Not crazy people without gun vs crazy people with gun = bad

GOOD POINT!!

Looks like someone went on some mega tilt there.

Thats a bit sad really, it's only a game.

looks like someone didnt read 'zen and the art of poker'

bet that he didnt fully understand the rules of razz and kept wondering why he was losing

It's disgusting how whenever something like this happens (Virginia Tech anyone?) people will push for more gun control. While it's possible he had the gun legally, the vast amount of murders (including the Virginia Tech shootings) are done with guns obtained illegally. If we had less strict gun control and the other 2 had owned a weapon and been able to defend themselves, well there still would have been some deaths, but in most cases people would be somewhat reasonable and realize that it's not smart to attack someone who also may have a gun.

A quote from one of my friends:

"Recent events have shown that schools are a perfectly safe place for a shooter to bring a gun in and fire until he runs out of ammo".

I don't think more weapons would have solved anything in this situation and MAY have even made it worse (but they could have at least defended themselves), but overall gun control is shown to help the criminals and those who don't follow the law. If I can be sure the house I'm going to rob won't have anyone armed inside it or the woman I'm going to rape isn't carrying a weapon, I feel a lot safer than thinking that it's possible that someone could be inside and I could have a gun aimed at my head when they hear me break in.

Of course this is the best comment IMO:

Not sure about that. Here in the UK, we have gun control as strict as anywhere in the world. I don`t know that it makes much difference, though.

It stops most average citizens from owning a gun, but the criminals still have them. By definition, a criminal doesn`t much respect the law and so making something illegal doesn`t stop him.

It`s true we have fewer shootings than the US, but I`d say that is more about cultural differences than it is about legislation.

"While it's possible he had the gun legally,"

Highly doubtful. OP stated he had 18 prior convictions. Felons can NOT legally own guns.

Oh, and gun control means using both hands.

maybe murder control just make it against the law for anyone to murder anyone else

Wouldn't that take the fun out of life though?

Interesting story.
Those guys deserved it though, if they were cheating.

Really????







*Note to self: Never cheat 4aces07!

Yeah but I doubt 3 people would just sit there and allow themselves to be stabbed.....

A gun is just like boom headshot - boom headshot - boom headshotx2.

3 people should be able to overpower or smarter, run, from a knife wielding psychopath. The damage you can do with a gun is VASTLY greater than what you can do with a knife.

Yep, better guns laws imo.

crazy friggin people....don't play with people you dont trust....go to a casino geez theres camerasas there, and stay away from knives and guns, ecspecially with that temper lol

Sorry, I will never support more gun legislation. As Egon points out, additional legislation only affects law abiding citizens. Old axioms apply...guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns are nothing more than a tool that helps facilitate the process. As far as I'm concerned, the only gun control I support is using two hands to aim. In fact, I'm highly in favor of a concealed carry law.

Am I the only one who noticed the reporter knew stuff like "cracked aces" and "bad beats" ..

Coincidence, fake or do you think they chose a reporter that knew about poker to write it?

The point is the gun laws don't prevent people from illegally owning weapons. As mentioned above, with all the previous criminal history, it's doubtful he owned the gun legally. But he still had it, and was able to murder some people with it while they were defenseless. Gun laws disarm the populace and make it very easy for a criminal who somehow got a gun (a criminal? Break the law?) to shoot all he wants until the police arrive.

Speaking of police, did you know there was a Supreme Court case that basically said the police have ABSOLUTELY NO DUTY to protect the citizens? Someone was being attacked, called 911, was able to survive enough time such that the police should have gotten there, but they never came (I think they actually showed up a few hours later to find the dead body and the attacker gone). Supreme Court ruled there was nothing wrong because they had no obligation to protect them. So if the police don't have to protect you and we can't own a gun to protect ourselves, what self-defense do we have? Are we down to building that moat around our houses?

I've actually been having this argument with several kids in school here. I am in favor of repealing the federal law mandating colleges to be "gun-free". Now if it's a private school I have no problem with the campus making rules about guns (and then people deciding whether to go there could take that into account), but I think a federal law is unconstitutional. People are just scared of guns and make up all sorts of stories about what would happen. An argument would happen and someone would draw a gun. I said why doesn't that happen in the movie theatre? I'm not advocating everyone be given a gun, but if you can get a concealed permit to carry it around in public, why can't you have one on campus? You can walk down the streets, go into all sorts of stores with a concealed weapon, yet you walk onto a school and you're a criminal? Maybe if people were carrying Virginia Tech wouldn't have happened.

And as expected, most of the responses are just "guns are bad" or "you want MORE guns???". I've said if we could eliminate guns from society, I'd be happy to. But unfortunately the bad guys will always have them. So the question is, do we want to give the good guys the right to own a gun or do we want to make sure the innocent are all disarmed?

Read the OP again and where the OP got the article.

"this is an article i read from pokerkingblog"

<3 Zach...it's almost like I wrote it, just didn't have to type.

One question on this:
Have you seen actual case law on this? I'd be interested to see/read more on it if you find it. Last I saw, most if not all police cars still say "to protect and serve" somewhere on them.

^^^^^^^^^Totally agree with everything here^^^^^^^^^^ The bad trip is that any law-abiding citizen who wishes to own a gun has to basically go through an act of congress to get it.

What ever happened to the old mano-a-mano? those were better they lasted longer
As some of the locals here say "Tunda vs Tunda"

You obviously completely missed Vanq's point. Most crimes are committed with illegally obtained guns.

If you take guns away from people, bad guys will always have access to them, and yet regular people will not.

It's funny how most anti-gun activists don't understand the concept of illegally obtained firearms.

I don't think they were practicing proper BRM.

As for gun control, if the people who are LEGALLY allowed to own guns could carry them, we would probably have less problems. If you read on the Luby's Massacre and similar stories, you usually find that someone involved had a license to carry, but the location they are in did not allow firearms. Had most of these people carried their weapons things MAY have been different. Maybe it's my "old west" Texas ways still in me, but if you have the right to carry, you should be able to. As it is now, if someone wants to rob a bank or go on a killing spree somewhere, what do they have to be affraid of... cameras? Wooptie-doo. BUT, if those same people had to worry that the personal banker behind them may have a weapon in his desk, or ANY of the patrons in the bank have a weapon on them... they may think twice. OR, if someone has to worry that ANY teacher/school official may have a weapon on them, they may think twice before entering a school/business. As it is now, there is NO threat to someone that wants to do harm to others... and a lot of harm at that.

With that though, there would have to be strict laws on firearm usage. For example: If you brandish your weapon in traffic/public for no need, either your license should be taken away or suspended period. AND it should be similar to a car in that you may have to take a class to carry it and then maybe take a refresher class every X years to keep your license.

In my defense, I had a migraine when I read it..and saw where he got it..just wasn't thinking clearly enough at the time I responded..

Dang it Pantin
Thought you were placing a "want add" till I opened the thread...


Of couse my idea of gun control is to hit what you're aiming at and like JD said use 2 hands! The rest of the time my guns are locked in a safe. I too was raised with a lot of old west values and firearms are tools for me and my son to gathering substanance from the bounties of nature to feed my family.

It is a long proven fact that when gun contol is increased criminal activity increases also in today's society. I grew up in an area where most everyone owned guns and violent crime/gun crime was completely unheard of. No sense of my rehashing all the positive coments against gun control all ready said, they are all very good points.

Think about the posts where there is heavy gun control, who has the guns??? Not enough, let's look at it from a different dirrection. Think about pre WWII Germany and Hitler disarming the public (Yea gun control activists!). His henchmen had little trouble terrorising whom ever they wished and anyone who complained about it afterwards ended up dead too.

Infringing on the right to bear arms is simply not acceptable, getting crimials off the streets is the only way to help stop violent crimes. All of the guys involved had criminal histories (more than likely drugs and theft) and the shooter had 18 convictions therefore none could legaly own guns, what more proof do you need? How in the world would gun control help here???

This just brought a tear to my eye.

I thought the police were paid from the public purse.

Those justices need to be shot.

I'm going to ignore all the gun-control-related off-topicalia (and here I include those both for and against it, since this is cardschat not politicschat). Hot-button issues bore me silly, and besides I'm Canadian and we already have fairly stiff gun control up here.

Shooting someone you thought cheated you at poker is a time-old tradition dating back to the earliest days of the game. The only diff is back then it took longer to load the musket. But even then not everybody shot everybody he took a bad beat from. It depended on whom you played with, which basically depended on whom you hung out with. A guy with 18 prior convictions is unlikely to just go "aw shucks" when he gets upset about anything. So IMO the poker angle here is a mirage. This is a story about some career baddies getting violent over an illegal financial transaction gone sour, same as a drug deal.

If you fancy yourself a good poker player then you should be able to get a read on people when you first meet them before going to one of their homes for a game. Oh, you mean you don't first go for a beer at a bar with the guys you intend to play with, in order to get to know them? Silly you.