Air Force veteran, Joshua Peters was targeted by anonymous attackers in the middle of a Twitch stream to nearly 60,000 viewers.
Peter, an avid gamer who lives in St. Cloud Minnesota was playing Runescape on his browser when he fell prey to a “swatting” prank.
Swatting refers to the practice where a prank phone call is placed to the police with false information, based on which they respond with the deployment of SWAT team or armed officers at the target of the swatter. [1] The SWAT team is usually instructed to take down the target without any questioning, which is why swatting can be lethal and often leads to injuries. In Peter’s case, an anonymous person called the St Cloud Police Department in Minnesota and told the police ” someone had shot their roommate and now they were pointing their gun at them”
Peter who is known as Koopatroopa787 in the online gaming communities, earns a living by live streaming sessions of games like Clash of Clans and Runescape.
Before ending the show, Peter turned back to the audience, and addressed his attacker. “I see you posting my address. I had police point a gun at my little brothers because of you. They could have been shot, they could have died. Because you chose to swat my stream. I don’t give a shit about what you have against me, or what I did to you. For that I am at a loss for words. Your gripe is with me. But do not involve my family in this. They don’t deserve it.”
Speaking to the Guardian the day after the attack, Peters said he had no idea why he was targeted. “There are no possible persons who I can think would do something like this to me.”
He also said that “My channel’s not crazy big, like some of these other mainstream streamers. I just didn’t expect that. I was going upstairs, and before I knew it, my face was on a tile on the ground, hands wide open and a bunch of police officers with assault rifles.”
Sources:
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/gamer-raided-swat-team-front-60000-viewers/story?id=28775474
I really don’t get why they see anything funny or how they get some sort of rush out of having a swat team sent to a random person playing video games, first off, it is a huge waste of time and money that could perhaps have been spent way better, second off, I doubt any of us would want a group of cops breaking in to our house and scaring the living shit out of everyone in the house and if very unlucky they might shoot because of a sudden movement from us being shocked.
I really despise the people who do this.
its for the lulz man, nobody understansds that
So it would be funny if someone swatted you, and they came and killed you? You’re a fucking moron.
Let me call the cops on you so they can bash your face to the floor, maybe get shot because have a gun trying to protect yourself, thinking it’s a robber, maybe also shoot your dog because “they fear for their lives”, and also get arrested and go to court for having a bong & a bag of weed.
Ill do it so I can lulz
pretty dam funny if you ask me. but uncalled for, none the less
From a previous US Naval Corpsman sorry that there is still evil in this world and my brother im arms get this treatment as thanks.
Ok…. this is where you need a system similar to what we have in NZ. All prank calls are hunted down and the time wasters are fines but shit like this needs a prison sentence where they get prison raped.
Things like this is just… Wrong, it’s just plain wrong. It’s actually really evil, i don’t get why people have to swat streams. Is it because it’s “fun”? Or maybe they just think they can kill people like that? That, i don’t know but trash like these people do not deserve to live in this world.
Things like this is just…. Wrong, it’s just plain wrong. Why do people swat streams? Is it because it’s fun? Is it because they think they can just kill people? That, i don’t know but trash like these kind of people do not deserve to live.
This was a TERRIBLE thing to do! Whether to someone you know, or a complete stranger. Did you, the pranker, realize there could be young children involved? Innocent children, besides the gamer? What kind of cruelty were you planning?? You are so in the wrong for this, I hope you get caught and properly punished!!
This is fucking disgusting that someone would do that, what if the cops hurt that little boy or worse killed him, if I ever met the person who swatted this dude I would literally make him my bitch and torture him like he tortured this poor guy
That’s a very uncool “practical joke” that seriously could have gotten someone killed. I hope you track the idiot(s) behind this and have the system throw the book at them…
This is just wrong.
Something needs to be done about this whether its tracing that call back to where it came from or whatever cause this is bullshit! This guy does not deserve this, neither does anyone else. People that think they’re funny cause they SWAT people is not cool! It’s evil and should not happen!
You would think the cops would look into it a little better before sending a swat team in just from a no-name phone call!!
It was a supposed emergency Rob D. Had it been real lives would’ve been in danger. There was no time to “look into it”.
Anyone, no matter what the reason behind doing it, who swats a streamer and threatens their family members and the streamer should be put in the same spotlight. These people who think they can control someone else by falsifying a crime or state of emergency on them. These people should be treated like how they treat the streamer they targeted. Invaded, guns in your face. It’s not funny no matter how you look at it. It’s sick beyond human nature.
Can you say Sociopath?
Firstly I feel sorry for you man, this is wrong. But don’t swat have gears to track these prank calls ?
You’d think so, but with the amount of swattings that happen…I guess they don’t have the tech or time to use it. Here in OK someone did a swatting (not video game related) and it ended up with one of the sheriff’s getting shot (but surviving) because the guy was armed and heard someone downstairs late at night and thought it was a burglar. From no-knock to BOOM.
The real crime here is how easy it is to get police to kick down doors and point guns at innocent victims.
I dont know what this guy was thinking, I hope he feels very guilty for being responsible for 10 police officers pointing rifles at his 10 year old brother, some people just dont care how much this could affect the guy that was swatted and the people around him living in that house.
Im so sorry for Joshua and what happened to him
In India we hope that the police may arrive in time. Out there ya’ll find it funny and waste their punctual time.
He should file a complaint about this event and held both the police department and the one who called it in responsible for this.
For the police department for not checking out if there was any kind of relevance at all and for the one who called it in for endangering peoples life’s.
Whoever did this is a piece of shit. Police are mostly trigger-happy murderous lunatics as it is… Anonymous, how about finding the little douche who did this and turn his ass in?
Whoever did that is a piece of sh*t. Cops are mostly trigger-happy lunatic as*holes as it is… Anonymous, how about finding the little douche who did this and turning them in?
although pointing a finger to the pranker is nice, very nice. he is indeed a bad man, but playing the blame game is not helping here.
the question is, do there really need to be swat teams like this?
SWAT teams are like hound dogs they need to be set loose and blooded every now and then in preparation for the real thing.
For me its the SWAT teams controllers have some group of immune from justice idiots and pranksters who have the job to ring in using untraceable equipment with false reports Then SWAT teams are frequently practicing on hapless innocent peoples .
If they dont do that the other local police forces will look the SWAT team and say why they only did 2 swat ops a year are they worth the costs
Its the same with the car windows replacement market they employ staff to go smash windows to keep themselfs in work
People who work often as part timers in fire brigade have been found to be more likly to light fires to break the boredom
Chances are one of the SWAT team or its hanger on like local cops isnt a fan of the gamer .
Anon
Thats mesed up