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OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the future. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

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The Healing Power of Making Video Games Like ‘Minecraft’

9 min readNov 5, 2019

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Credit: Kelvin Yup/Unsplash

GGranada Hills, Los Angeles, August 1999. Ben Formaker-Olivas was nine years old and jumpy with excitement. He and a bunch of other kids were at the North Valley Jewish Community Center, waiting for a bus on a scruffy back lot just down the hill from the main building. They were heading to Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park, and it was going to be his first ride on a roller coaster.

“The counselors directed us to the buses, and I was in the line to get on,” Formaker-Olivas recalls. “There were these large planters that always had little pink and white flowers in them. I remember being in that spot when I heard the noise echoing down from the campus. It sounded like screaming and glass breaking. I thought it was just kids playing.”

What had actually happened would later make the news around the world. A white supremacist, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, walked into the lobby of the community center. He fired 70 shots into the building, wounding three children, a young counselor, and another employee. He then fled the scene and, 20 minutes later, shot and killed postal worker Joseph Santos Ileto.

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OneZero
OneZero

Published in OneZero

OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the future. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Keith Stuart
Keith Stuart

Written by Keith Stuart

Journalist/novelist. Author of A Boy Made of Blocks and Days of Wonder. Veteran video game player. Twitter: @keefstuart