Professional gamers named as victims of Florida shooting
US media have named two professional video gamers as the victims of Sunday's mass shooting in Florida.
Eli Clayton, 21, and Taylor Robertson, 27, were shot dead during the attack at the Jacksonville Landing shopping and entertainment complex on Sunday afternoon, family members and fellow gamers said.
Their names have not yet been confirmed by police.
Police have named David Katz, a 24, year old from from Baltimore, as the perpetrator of the shooting. He died at the scene after turning his gun on himself.
Eleven people were injured in the attack. It was earlier reported in local media that four people had been killed.
Clayton and Robertson were well known players of Madden NFL, an American footballing video game, and were competing in a tournament at the GLHF Game Bar in the Chicago Pizza restaurant when they were killed.
Unconfirmed reports in local media said Katz was also competing and opened fire after losing a match.
Footage from the tournament's live stream showed a Clayton and another player competing in a match before shots rang out. A dozen shots were heard before the live stream was cut.
Eli, or Elijah, Clayton was a former high school football player and was known on the eSports circuit by the nickname TrueBoy.
Taylor Robertson, known to fellow gamers as Spotme, won the Madden 17 Classic last year. His Twitter feed lists him as a father, husband and pro-Madden player for DotCityGaming.
Katz, who was in Jacksonville for the video game tournament, is listed by games maker, EA Sports, as a 2017 championship winner.
Steven "Steveyj" Javaruski, a professional Madden player for Noble eSports, said the shooter had been competing and lost, the LA Times reported.
Mr Javaruski said he witnessed his fellow competitor target a "few people” killing at least two or three and shooting multiple others.
Sheriff Williams declined to comment on what led to the third major mass shooting to hit Florida in the last two years.
The two fatalities have been identified as Elijah Clayton and Taylor Robertson, the LA Times reported.
“RIP to Trueboy and Spotme,” Javaruski tweeted, referring to the handles they adopted for the screen. “This is the worst day of my life.”
Chicago Pizza was live-streaming the tournament for the Madden NFL football video game when at least nine shots rang out, according to video of the stream shared on social media.
Investigators were looking into online video that appeared to capture the scene right before the shooting began, Sheriff Williams said.
In the video, players can be seen reacting to the gunfire and cries can be heard before the footage cuts off.
Just before the shots were heard, a red laser dot appeared on the chest of one of the players, who was wearing white headphones and a red sweatshirt.
Reacting to news of the shooting during the tournament involving its game, Madden 19 maker Electronic Arts Inc said it was working with authorities to gather facts.
"This is a horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out to all involved," the company said on Twitter.
SK Gaming, a professional online sports organisation based in Germany, said one of its players was present at the event.
The shooting has prompted calls for tighter security in the increasingly lucrative eSports industry.
"It's very clear that we need to be more proactive for 2019 and beyond," tweeted Joey Cuellar, the tournament director for the Evolution Championship Series, an esports event held annually in Las Vegas.
In March, organizers of the tournament called the FBI when someone wrote online: "mass shooting @EVO18 see you there."
That event went off without a hitch, but Cuellar also wrote on Sunday: "The amount of undercover law enforcement at Evo was unprecedented, and we will be installing metal detectors for ALL days next year."
