Tess Mata’s parents were once enthusiastic about social media. The 10-year-old from Uvalde, Texas, wanted to be TikTok famous. She used to dance, sing and imitate popular trends on her videos, with mom Veronica and dad Jerry keeping a watchful eye on her online habits.
But then Tess was gunned down at Robb Elementary School in 2022, one of 19 children and two teachers killed by a former student.
Since then, as details of the shooter’s personal life have become public, the Matas and a handful of other Uvalde families have come to believe that his exposure to gun content online and in video games led to the tragedy.
Jerry and Veronica Mata stand in front of the Spring Street Courthouse on July 17 in Los Angeles. After their daughter Tess was killed in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the couple are suing Meta, Activision and Daniel Defense in an attempt to challenge social media and video game marketing that they say urged the shooter to commit violence.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
They are now suing three companies they allege profited off the violent fantasies that led to their children’s deaths. The defendants include the maker of “Call of Duty,” a first-person military shooter game where they say 18-year-old Salvador Ramos encountered a virtual version of a Daniel Defense-branded AR-15 he used in the attack. They are also suing Meta, alleging Ramos encountered ads for the gun that promoted violence on Instagram.
The Matas and three other families from Uvalde will travel more than 1,200 miles this week to confront the companies in L.A. County Superior Court, where they have filed claims for negligence, aiding and abetting and wrongful death.
“They glorify these weapons. They made it enticing for young kids to want to purchase these guns, and kids that young are so receptive to these types of things,” Veronica Mata told The Times.
Activision, the Santa Monica-based video game developer, has filed for dismissal, arguing that the 1st Amendment protects “Call of Duty” as a work of art. Meta has also fought to have the case tossed, pointing to well-established case law that shields social media platforms from liability for third-party content posted by users and advertisers.
Whether the case proceeds could be decided at a hearing Friday in downtown L.A.
Jerry Mata holds dog tag necklaces of his daughter Tess, one of 19 students killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
The families allege “Call of Duty,” one of the top-grossing video game franchises in the world, encouraged violence by catching Ramos in a repeated gameplay loop with real-world weapons. And they claim Instagram equipped him with the knowledge of how, when and where to buy the gun he used.
“To put a finer point on it: Defendants are chewing up alienated teenage boys and spitting out mass shooters,” the complaint claims, noting that the three most deadly K-12 school shootings in American history — Uvalde, Parkland and Sandy Hook — were all committed by young men who played “Call of Duty” and used an AR-15.
“Call of Duty is a simulation, not a game. It teaches players how to aim, reload, and fire accurately, while habituating the teenage nervous system to inflict repeated, graphic violence. And though the killing is virtual, the weapons are authentic,” the complaint alleges.
Ramos’ choice of the Daniel Defense AR-15 was intentional, the lawsuit said. The small weapons manufacturer has a market share of less than 1%, but a specific rail displayed on a popular “Call of Duty” gun made it easily identifiable to players online despite a lack of branding inside the game.
“It is the Defendants who gave Daniel Defense a direct line into children’s homes and heads, who wrote a playbook for how to peddle firearms while circumventing parents and the law, and who created a simulation with real-life weapons and applauded children for their proficiency at killing,” the complaint said.
Meta did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment, nor did Daniel Defense, another defendant in the lawsuit.
A photo of a weapon next to the truck that the Robb Elementary School shooter crashed before the shooting on May 24, 2022.
(Pete Luna / Uvlade Leader-News)
Courts have long rejected the idea that violent video games like “Call of Duty” are responsible for the actions of those who play them despite the moral panic surrounding the issue, and have also overturned efforts to restrict minors’ access to them.
Most modern “Call of Duty” games are rated for mature audiences over 17 by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, but are available to minors through online marketplaces that don’t meaningfully verify someone’s age before purchase.
“Any adolescent that wants to download Call of Duty can do that,” Josh Koskoff, a lawyer for the Uvalde families, told The Times.
A 2011 Supreme Court case, Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Assn., struck down a 2005 California law that banned the sale of violent video games to minors. There was “no tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence. … Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed,” the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the 7-2 majority opinion.
Activision has long defended its games as protected artistic expression despite criticism of its extreme violence, which sometimes involves players killing other combatants — almost never allowing civilian casualties — in combat simulations, sometimes in public arenas like airports and urban sprawls.
“Call of Duty tells complex stories that explore the real-world combat scenarios that soldiers face in modern warfare. There can be no doubt Call of Duty is expressive and fully protected by the First Amendment,” the company said in a court filing.
The families still mourning their children say challenging the institutions that failed to protect them has been an ongoing fight. The new case is another chapter which feels like taking on giants, Veronica Mata said.
A woman walks near “Call of Duty” publicity on Dec. 7, 2022, in New York City.
(VIEW press / Corbis via Getty Images)
The city of Uvalde approved in May a $2-million settlement for a flawed police response to the shooting, and a Texas appeals court Wednesday ordered the release of documents from the school board and county about the shooting, local news reported.
“We can step forward, and we can make that change and make them understand that what they’ve done and what they continue to do is not benefiting them or anybody else,” Mata said.
