The competitive video game tournament to play Madden at the GLHF Game Bar left 10 people injured and two people dead after David Katz, 24, opened fire that Sunday afternoon. The victims were Elijah Clayton, 22, of Woodland Hills, Calif. and Taylor Robertson, 28, of Giles, West Virginia.
Both men had made thousands of dollars in their winnings and were well-known within the gaming community.
The motive for the shooting and Katz’s self-inflicted gunshot wound are still under investigation. A motive has yet to be determined by officials.
Katz was attending the Madden NFL video game tournament in a shopping complex in downtown, Jacksonville Landing. He lost a game earlier in the day according to a survivor.
Officials said Katz legally obtained a permit and purchased a 9mm handgun and a .45-caliber handgun in Maryland last month. One of the guns had laser sight attached to it.
According to divorce records, Katz had been treated for psychiatric issues since the age of 12. He had been on a variety of psychiatric medications and seen “a succession of psychiatrists,” a letter from his father’s attorney said in 2006.
CNN was able to obtain police records that indicated 26 calls to the police for service were made between 1993 and 2009 to the family home in Columbia, Maryland. However, the Howard County Police Department was unable to release reports from some of the incidents due to statutory restrictions.
Both of Katz’s parents worked for the federal government. His father, Richard Katz, is a NASA engineer at the Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, DC. His mother, Elizabeth Katz, was listed as a Food and Drug Administration employee during the time of her divorce.
The parents had a contentious divorce and custody battle, both strongly disagreeing about their sons mental health treatment. His mother had taken him to see a number of psychiatrists, an art therapist and a social worker, according to the letter from his father’s attorney in 2006. Around that time, Katz was prescribed Lexapro, an antidepressant, and Risperidone, an antipsychotic medication used for schizophrenia.
His father disagreed with the treatment. A motion from his father’s lawyer said, “Richard Katz has seen no evidence whatsoever of schizophrenia in David Katz.”
According to documents, Katz was enrolled at the University of Maryland in September 2014 but was not registered for classes this fall. He was majoring in environmental science and technology.
University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh issued a public statement following the shooting, “Our community grieves for the families of those who lost their lives in yesterday’s horrific shooting in Jacksonville.”
She referenced the mass shooting in Annapolis just this year, “When our community was directly impacted by the shooting in Annapolis this summer, I said that more than silent reflection is needed to end the epidemic of gun violence in our country, and I will say that again today.”