BELMONT, N.C. — A Belmont man was supposed to be at the gaming tournament in Jacksonville, Florida where a mass shooting happened on Sunday.
He listened in horror to the livestream where gunshots rang out, as people screamed in panic.
"It just keeps running back through your mind to think I was supposed to be there," gamer Brian Armstrong said.
[Jacksonville shooting: What we know about the victims]
He said he knew the shooter and the victims very well.
David Katz opened fire during a “Madden” football video game tournament at a shopping center.
Two people were killed and 11 were injured. Katz killed himself.
Armstrong couldn’t be at the tournament because the sponsor of the competition asked him to commentate later rounds.
He couldn't compete, but he watched as his close friends became entangled in a frightening mass shooting.
"It's been kind of cloudy, like a dream," Armstrong said.
Armstrong played “Madden” Monday with friends trying to forget about the tragedy.
"It's devastating,” Armstrong said. “It just keeps running back through your mind to think I was supposed to be there."
Armstrong called a friend immediately following the shooting.
"And I hear him just panting, Armstrong said. “And I'm like 'What's going on?' And he said, 'He shot up the place'. I said, 'What?' He said, 'Bread shot up the place.'
Bread was Katz's screen name.
Armstrong knew him well and said he was socially awkward.
Katz had been hospitalized for mental illness, according to court records.
"But you never think he was capable of driving all the way from Baltimore and shooting up a tournament," Armstrong said.
A friend in Jacksonville told Armstrong he beat Katz before the shooting.
"'I said, ‘Good game’ and I put my hand out,” the friend said. “And he just looked at me and walked away.”
The friend who beat Katz wasn't the target, but Eli Clayton was shot.
Armstrong said Clayton had been sparring with his gaming rival on message boards since he beat Katz last year.
His friends Clayton and Taylor Robertson were killed.
Armstrong said several other friends are trying to get over the horror of surviving a mass shooting.
"And you hear your buddies, how they were clamoring in bathrooms just crawled up on stalls,” Armstrong said. “They were just basically trying to live you know. It's an awful situation."
Armstrong said it's not unusual to see security at these events.
He is not sure why there wasn't security at the tournament on Sunday, but he said until Sunday most gamers believed the only reason to have security is to break up arguments.
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