Fortnite World Cup champion Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf became the latest "swatting" victim while he was streaming live on Twitch Sunday evening.
The 16-year-old competitive gamer was streaming a round of Fortnite with several of his buddies when they were suddenly interrupted. Giersdorf's dad told him that a group of police officers were there, apparently looking for him. His reaction was to ask his dad if he had just been swatted.
Giersdorf disappeared from the live stream for some time, leaving his friends to wonder what was going on. When he came back to the room, he told them that he had just been swatted and that cops came into their home armed with guns.
Fortunately, he was able to diffuse the situation after one of the police officers recognized him as one of the local kids in the neighborhood.
"This one officer ... he lives in our neighborhood," Giersdorf told his buddies during the Twitch stream.
"Dude, they come in with guns, bro. That's scary."
Albert Werner, a corporal at the Upper Pottsgrove Township Police Department, said they received a phone call from someone claiming to be Giersdorf.
"He was Kyle and said that he shot his father multiple times with an AK-47 and had his mother tied up and bound in the garage," Werner said.
The police said the phone call appeared to have come from somewhere overseas.
What Is Swatting?
Swatting is defined as the act of falsely reporting a crime to the police with the intent of having armed officers showing up at the victim's house. It is often done as a form of harassment toward the intended target. In most cases, the caller would claim that the target is armed and will hurt other people in the house.
Recent cases of swatting involved popular celebrities on Twitch, likely because of the possibility that the incident will be broadcasted live through stream.
Moderators of the Reddit forum "r/LivestreamFails" have already banned the posting of video clips or discussions featuring swatting to help discourage members from taking part or glorifying the stunt.
A Dangerous Prank
While swatters would claim that it is just harmless fun, the prank has already led to the death of one person in Kansas in 2017.
Wichita-native Andrew Finch was shot and killed by local police officers, who were responding to a phone call regarding a possible homicide and hostage incident. The cops accidentally fired at the unarmed Finch after the man opened the door. The victim was taken to the hospital but was later pronounced dead by doctors.
Finch was the apparent victim of a swatting report, though he was not really the intended target. The erroneous phone call was made by professional swatter Tyler Barriss. Barriss was supposedly recruited to do the stunt by an Ohio man who got into a heated argument with a fellow Call of Duty: WWII player.
In his phone call to the Wichita police, Barriss said he had just killed one person and had two other people as hostages. However, the address that he gave to the cops was not his intended victim but rather Finch's instead. This led to the fatal shooting.
Barriss was later sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to making a false report to the police resulting in a death, cyberstalking, and conspiracy.
