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Edmonds gamer says more security needed after losing friend in shooting

An Edmonds professional gamer who competed at the Madden 19 qualifier event in Jacksonville is urging tournament organizers to increase security at future events after losing one of his best friends in the shooting.

Shay Kivlen, a 21 year old who won the Madden 18 Bowl this spring, had been eliminated in overtime on Sunday and went back to his hotel room. He was watching the live stream when he suddenly heard gunshots.

“I got up out of my bed,” he said. “I started calling everyone at the tournament that was in my contacts.”

After 10 agonizing minutes, he reached a friend.

"My friend was crying,” he said. “He was stuck in a bathroom at the place with like 30 other people in there, just in this bathroom. And he told me that my friend Elijah Clayton — he thought he was dead.”

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Kivlen said he tried to maintain hope that 22-year-old Clayton, one of his best friends over the past several years, was perhaps injured but still alive. Then his friend told him about something a representative from Electronic Arts had mentioned to him.

“That guy from EA actually said that the shooter, right before I left, asked where I was going, as I was leaving,” Kivlen said. “Basically, the guy from EA thought that I was a target.”

Kivlen had beaten the shooter, whom police identified as 24-year-old David Katz, in a previous competition, and he wondered if Katz had animosity toward him. He called police and an officer stayed at his hotel room until they got confirmation that Katz had killed himself.

But he soon received news that Clayton had been shot and died from his injuries.

“I’ve talked to him every day for the last, like two months, literally every day,” he said, “to not talking, now, forever -- it’s going to be really tough.”

The emotions in losing his friend and seeing so many others injured are overwhelming.

“I'm going through anger, confusion, and then sadness too,” he said. “I'll randomly break out and start crying.”

He said Clayton was a kind-hearted, genuine person who wore his heart on his sleeve. On his Twitter account, Kivlen posted a photo of him and the other man killed, 28-year-old Taylor Robertson.

“We need to recognize their lives and the legacy that they're leaving behind, not just as gamers, but men,” Kivlen said. “What they did for their families and the people around them.”

Brandi Pettijohn shared Clayton’s family’s devastation in Florida on Monday.

“My cousin has to bury her firstborn and it is just as terrible as that sounds,” she said. “Our family has been forever changed. Nothing will replace the love that we have for Elijah.”

As for the man who took Clayton’s life? Kivlen is still searching for answers.

“He just wouldn’t be social with anyone,” he said of Katz. “People would try to talk to him. People would say ‘What's up,’ and stuff and he just wasn't, he wasn't having any of it.”

But he doesn't think Katz's loss in the tournament was the breaking point.

“I really don’t think it was because he lost,” he said. “I think he was going in doing that no matter what, and he was just playing to play. Because I talked to a few people that saw him after he lost, and he didn't seem super angry or anything.”

The competition was in the back room of a pizzeria and sports grill -- easy, Kivlen said, for Katz to walk into with a gun.

“What kind of security was at the bar?” KIRO 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked.

“No metal detectors, no bag checks,” Kivlen said. “I didn't even see any security. Supposedly there was one security guard but I didn't see him.”

Kivlen would like to see organizers bump up security at e-sport or gaming tournaments and conventions.

“I hope they still have the tournaments,” he said. “I hope they take a break, though, from having the tournaments. Just because everyone needs to grieve. All the people that went to this event, I don’t know how-- for me, personally, I’m going to have to take a little break because I don’t know how I’m going to be able to play for a little while.”

Monday night, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said the company would "cancel our three remaining Madden Classic qualifier events while we run a comprehensive review of safety protocols for competitors and spectators."

Wilson said the company would work with partners "and our internal teams to establish a consistent level of security at all of our competitive gaming events."

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