Ronald “SirusTheVirus” Casey risked his own life to protect younger Madden players in the midst of the Jacksonville shooting.
On August 26th, a competitor in a Madden 19 qualifying tournament opened fire in Jacksonville Landing’s GLHF game bar, killing two players and injuring eleven before turning the gun on himself.
During the chaos of the incident, one player risked his life to protect others in the venue using his own body.
Known as “SirusTheVirus,” the Ohio-based Madden player shielded younger competitors as the shooter unloaded in a moment of quick-thinking. He described the incident in an interview with Fox45, stating that they were lucky the gunman wasn’t weilding an automatic weapon.
“A bullet hit the wall or whatever, came over and I could smell it. That’s when I was like, man, I just made the decision to jump on top of the guys.”
Casey was just behind the stream setup, which caught the gut-wrenching incident on camera. One of the players on stream, Eli “trueboy” Clayton, was killed.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
“The gun shots started taking off just, pop, pop, pop, and it just like it took everyone by surprise,” he said. “This was the worst thing I’ve seen in my life. I’m sitting there and I see these people getting shot.”
Multiple Twitter users reached out to Casey, thanking him for his heroic act and hailing him as a hero.
“@SirusTheVirusTV and @fitzmagic13 dad are heroes. Shout out to these guys for putting other people’s lives in front of theirs and trying to shield them while the shooting happened. Truly glad they’re both okay 🙏🏻🙏🏻”
600https://twitter.com/Jokeeee_/status/1033983461110022144
According to Casey, the room inside the venue was very small, leaving the assembled players vulnerable to attack. While three fatalities ultimately resulted from the incident, it’s thanks to Casey that there weren’t more.
