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A Runescape Twitch streamer was swatted last week in front of 60,000 viewers. Last Thursday, an armed SWAT team turned up at Joshua Peter's (KoopaTroopa on Twitch), home following a fake emergency service call. The streamer's ten year old brother was unfortunate enough to answer the door.
Peters left the room in order to address what was going on downstairs and came back to the stream a little while later in a pretty emotional state. He later sent out a tweet saying: “Got swatted during my stream. 10 cops pointed guns at my 10 year old brother when he answered the door. I'm shaking with frustration.. ”
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn-U9S7aV6M']
Later a video was captured and posted to YouTube of the streamer's message to the swatters, saying: “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 s*** 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 so let it be with me and do not involve my family in any way, shape or form with this. They don't deserve that.”
Right now it is not known who sent the SWAT team or exactly why. However, a 19 year old Las Vegas resident, Brandon “FamedGod” Wilson, was arrested in connection to a previous swatting last year, so it looks like the police are finally starting to crack down on the issue.
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KitGuru Says: Swatting is a practice that seriously needs to stop. It is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt during one of these incidents. Fortunately, the police seem to be getting better at tracking down the culprits and arresting them.
Stupid, idiot of a troll. There is a strong research showing that real trolls are in fact sociopaths, and from this I have to concur. I feel for the streamer…
You should see this one troll in the UK they actually tracked down IRL. He was posting hate speech on dead peoples remembrance websites and stuff. Guy was a total piece of shit.
“Not this shit again” was my first thought when I saw this ._.
What a piece of shit, I feel bad for the streamer. One minute he is doing something he loves the next he has a cart-load of armed police in his house, and to be fair with Americas recent track record with innocent civilians I would have been petrified too.
They will catch whoever did this, I just hope the streamers’ family get him in a room alone for 5 minutes…….
Cheaters ought to get swatted and shot!
This is stupid why is it that in America the Police are something to be scared of. When police get phone calls like that they could maybe use their intelligence (in both forms of the word) and find out who lives in said house, occupation and things like that. The problem is just as much with the US police as it is with the idiot trolls that start this.
Dude when youre told that hostages are about to be executed, there aren’t that many things that can be done. You arent just gonna wait till you get intelligence on whatnot before you make your move. I however strongly recommend streamers to give their adresses to local police stations so that they are warned that the call may be a prank. That seems like a sensible way to avoid a crisis.
Of course even better would be to have heavy penalties on the bastards who are actually caught doing this.
link to the newspage xD?
I won’t protect police in general, but when it comes to swatting, they have a duty to follow through on the contents of the call. The important thing is them practicing proper trigger discipline and reacting appropriately once on site. Better a false and some emotional trauma for a swatted, than writing off a real call as a prank and someone ending up dead. The problem with catching the moronic psychopaths placing the fake calls is that they frequently use voip via proxy’s/vpn’s, and are extremely hard to find. The best thing someone who’s swatted can do, is if they have any sort of warning that they’re about to be swatted, is to immediately contact the police themselves and make sure to explain the situation over the phone and follow given instructions. The fake swat calls are meant to make the victims sound extremely violent, so the teams sent will be on edge by default.
It takes no time at all to find out information on an address. Who lives there, what they do etc. prior offenses. The police are too brash, spending a few extra minutes will not cause a hostage to die. Also in a hostage situation taking time is better than rushing in without a plan.
Why did this even become something that happens? It’s such a dangerous and juvenile thing to do that I’m shocked there are people who want to do it at all, but I guess that’s the internet for you.
I’m not implying they ignore it, i just think they should handle it a little more sensibly. There’s stories of them throwing flashbangs into baby’s cots and other overly extreme behaviours.
the fuck?
wtf is wrong with you you think cheaters should be swatted and shot and killed just for cheating in a fucking video game i dont think so your really fucked in the head arent you
I agree with that part. that’s why i talking about proper trigger discipline and reacting appropriately once on site. I’m just saying that if there’s a call like that, I’d rather they get to the house asap, maybe try some reconnaissance if they think they have enough time, or kick down the door if they think that’s better. The important thing is making sure that the people going through the door remember that they aren’t fucking rambo, and not everything that moves, or doesn’t, is a target.
This non-prank can only happen in america due to them going guns blazing at everything. Yes, the person who hoax called is to blame, but the police force and gun control in america is to blame too.
I just think that damage could be minimized if they took half a second instead of just busting in the door. I get that in the US people have more access to firearms, and there’s a larger population (so a larger number of crazy people) but even still just seems like they cannot wait to kick ass and chew bubble gun …
It seems like we’re in agreement. Nice pun by the way.
I heard about this, I think. Super messed up.
You obviously have never been on YouTube. Plenty of evidence of people with power abusing it from plenty of other countries. Gun control laws have nothing to do with it. Country has nothing to do with it. Get off your “America is evil kick”. Don’t come back at me with the cliche’s, come back with real proof that this only happens in America and only because of gun laws.
time to fucking stop the childish games, what fun do you get out of it. to the swatters that will or has done it in the past…i will catch you, i will catch your family i will make sure the swat team knows there is a sadistic asshole in the house. ITS NOT A GAME ANYMORE!!! your wasting peoples time and patience and this is why Net neutrality wont work because of idiot kids that dont give a flying fuck about anyone but themselves…what you did it because hes better then you at the game? GROW THE FUCK UP!!!!!!
don’t understand why its this easy to have a team of armed police raid an address just from an anonymous tip. this is how fucking dumb america is
Ok, fair call. I’ll change that to: This non-prank would never happen in the UK. Our police force aren’t in the habit of descending onto a house with armed units without good cause.
So tell me how is gun control not a factor? If they weren’t legal, the police wouldn’t have to come prepared for a fire fight as readily. They have to assume the worst and come prepared to deal with a criminal with a gun.
“We just got a hostage call, someone want to check into who lives at the address?” “Looks like a family of 3, no priors, seems pretty tame” “Welp, must be a prank call then, no reason to respond!” And on that day, 3 people were shot by a man who broke into their home.
I get what you’re saying. But police don’t have that kind of luxury, to know if a crime is a fake or not, until they actually arrive on scene. They have no other way to know if a crime is serious or not unless they can actually physically witness the scene. Part of me wants to say that they should exercise more caution, but what to what end? The caution they show is not to people, it’s to their own safety. If they start sending one unarmed officer to the door first to check it out, when it’s a real call, that officer can either be mislead or be shot in the process. That’s the reality of the world right now. I understand that cops in a lot of places are unarmed, and it works. Sadly, though, that kind of place doesn’t exist in the US (or in NA for that matter), where it’s pretty much a civil arms race.
EDIT (to address another of your comments further down): I agree with acting sensibly. But like I said, there’s a very, very fine line between too much and too little.
it is easy they could call the house lol
Swatting = Police not doing there job and doing some investigation first , Here say evidence doesn’t hold up in court so why the fuck are they going in charging gun’s ready on some random call? I don’t care if someone called it in or whatever the police should know better and do a little investigation before acting. This means i could call in shit on anyone and they would do it , like common do your jobs and INVESTIGATE FIRST stupid pigs.
It’s pretty easy to find out tho, you either send the closet patrol car and he will look into the situation before swat gets there and either talk to the neighbours or even call with a fake reason to see if it’s true while the swat team get’s ready , ALSO if there is a hostage situation , they usually suppose to call and negotiate with the guy to let them go just in case if they storm the place and he shoots them they suppose to be ready to go in if the negotiate don’t work, they shouldn’t just say fuck negotiating and rush in and hope to get the guy before he shoots someone that’s called sloppy police work and that’s why people are afraid of the cops since the cops will rush in without knowing the situation and shoot innocents.
They have negotiators for a reason to try and minimize violent interaction , the should of called with a fake reason , saying they’re looking for joe blow and find out , it would of been clear if it was real then since nobody should of answered and if someone did it would of been the bad guy and he would of been violent . Pretty easy to figure out , this is just a case of bad police work and poor investigation, this means i can call anyone and get them swatted and the police are to fucking stupid to study the situation and find if it’s real like common.
Rest of the World: Innocent until proven otherwise.
Murica: Terrorist until proven otherwise.
but theres many flaws here, no one can fully know if one is a terrorist, therefore, theres not much you can do if you get a call from someone saying theres a terrorist or a hostage situation, looking at who lives there, you might find someone with a clean record and know nothing about them. doesn’t mean they’re not chaining someone up in their basement.
its dumb because there could be a terrorist living next door to you?
Aw I love when murders answer the phone and tell you they’re going to slaughter a family. It’s so courteous! Not like those rude people who lie.
What pisses me off is some people actually find this funny. Total waste of police time, on top of POINTLESS harm to the streamer. If you get kicks out of this you need institutionalised.
You are off topic. Because in this case police didn’t use excessive force.
Yeah the bad guy would have been violent instead of just saying “No, sorry, he’s not home right now.” … like criminals are incapable of lying? Wat.
The only way to determine whether or not it’s a real situation is by going in and seeing whether its a real situation. They’re not going to just call and then forget about it if the person on the phone isn’t foaming at the mouth.
This could have been solved by have the Swat team out side the house. Ring the house phone or yell on the mega phone to come outside and talk. You know the old ways before they bust into a house
I really don´t get it ?
How come Police send Swat team at once, as a first response ?
( We in Sweden, can be happy if they even bother to send a police car..to respond,
to whatever emergency there is) (unless you shot an politician or a police, that is..)
So thats why I need to ask, and upon that, when and if its this was for real, a really serious case…
Do the Responding officer /(112/911) just hit the red button, screaming..
” -WE GOT AN Terrorist attack, all forces GO ! ” …. and.. they all ran.. ?
To the troll, the person behind this, I hope they get you.. and you spend, at least 10 year behind bars…
Since as a kid/person and human, your an assshole… and you need to use it, better, then you do now…
so prison, should suit you.. !
– There is no Excuses to plain stupidity… “someone, has to pay”
to the Broadcaster, that this “prank” was done upon, I don´t know you, but, I feel your pain !
Good luck and may…you forget it soon…
T.
You’re saying America like this kind of things happen in U.S. only. These happen around the world.
No. UK police are known to charge crowds on horseback with clubs. Ignore violent crimes while they send out 6 cruisers for a traffic stop. Beat someone for wearing a costume. Yeah, every country has their problems, just people like shitting on the US without knowing what they are talking about.
Actually I’m pretty sure there were couple of incidents in UK as well. I can’t recall names but I am 100% sure about reading it once like couple of months ago.
investigate what? if you was held hostage in a cellar and someone called it in, would u want them to investigate someones record that seems clean which might end up taking longer to find you or you might not ever be found. there must be reasons for how they act. i don’t think they swat peoples houses for fun on random calls. if a terrorist was living next to you, wouldn’t you want the police or swat teams to act as soon as possible? they’re doing their jobs. investigations could take up time and cause suspicion.
Investigations save lives and is proven by these swatting s it could of been avoided simple , but i doubt people to use logic these days let alone cops.
Yes they would i’ve seen it done and had it done to me , the cops calling pretending to be joe blow and then calling back 10 mins later or a patrol car coming saying we had reports of bla bla bla and we found out for it to be bogus do you know how would do this to you? So ya it happens it’s calling investigation. Seriously people don’t know how cops supposed to work like.
Right, so if the police are told someone is executing a room full of hostages’ by slitting their throats, you think their response is to spend 10 minutes pretending to be a pizza delivery guy confirming an order. Brilliant work detective!
Immediate responses save lives and slightly disturbs the innocent.
sorry that you are goin to be emotionaly scared for life honey,good guy policeman had to point his gun on your 10YEAROLDFACE
Uhh… Call the mothers cellphone, if someone else picks up ask to speak to her. Same thing with the fathers cellphone. If phones goes to voicemail, call their work, call neighbors, send a patrol car. Many more options that would take less time than it would for SWAT to assemble, gear up, and get there.
There are options other than doing nothing and sending in a full armed SWAT team because of an anonymous tip…
tuché, didn’t know that had happened. the only ones that hit the news are the US ones generally
The mounted units (horse back ones you mentioned) are brought out for football matches where drunk and disorderly behaviour would be an issue or during riots.
Multiple cars only happen when we have a dangerous pursuit, and they never ram cars as a matter of course. they use multiple vehicles to perform a slowing manurer that stops a chase safely.
beating for a costume? never heard of that one.
They never ignore violent crime if it’s reported. That’s the thing, reporting makes the difference, and if they don’t know they can’t act, that’s the same for ANY police force.
but the difference is the UK forces try peaceful solutions first, and our beat cops only carry pepper spray and sometimes tazers, and use it only as a last resort.
Not carrying guns means less accidental deaths, other than when it’s a major incident I’ve never heard of a police officer shooting anyone here. However, CrystalLizard (above) brought an incident to my attention that i wasn’t aware of.
how would you have done it? doubt you would have done any better. this isn’t a movie where they can investigate every inch of a person (unless ur the government) LOL since they like to spy 😛
Don’t want to sound like a dick but I’m going to sound like it, He shouldn’t be living with his parents still to avoid this kind of awkward situation. If he has the means to be a streamer and probably get paid for it, he should be out and about on his own apartment where the police would show up and no big deal. Just sayin’ he exposed his whole family to that by living with them.
So it’s the responsibility of the innocent to protect themselves from the police and the trolls? Sounds like victim blaming to me. This is a culture problem, you don’t get swatting in countries where the police respond sensibly, because what’s the point in phoning in a hostage situation when you know the police will get their shit straight before barging through the door?
My brother is 30 and still lives with my parents. Why? Because he’s the main carer for my ill Grandmother. There’s a million reasons this guy could be living with his family, and you blame him for exposing his family to danger? Wow ..way to blame the victim.
In New Zealand if there is a anonymous call about a armed gun man they send two cops to investigate and if it is serious then they call in for backup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOmwUX-nQQk UK cops during riot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmCbRydblac UK cops during armed raid on wrong house. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aPwMwVCKcA UK cops beating up a victim, not the criminal.
What I find interesting is all the videos of the UK cops getting their asses kicked/stabbed/shot by teenaged boys. Maybe should arm them. I mean I could go all day and cite page after page of incidents for any country. This countryist behaviour is pointless.
bunch of arseholes
all because someone got butt hurt in a game. People have no sense of reality and I would charge this person who pulled the swat to the fullest extent of the law, and also keep them out of the prison population so they do not learn how to be a better criminal.
Why does everyone think the police have such high tech all of a sudden? (i’m not american so i dont know how it works wit you guys) in australia we have departments in special areas, the normal police force here doesn’t have the high end tech as maybe the terrorism departments. Anything that turns into a full serious matter goes to those specific departments..
To be honest i think they should have had two officers go to the house, with a swatt team near the location just in case but, yes there is a but.. What with the whole ISIS thing going on i wouldn’t be surprised that they took this very seriously reason there was no patrol.
Its serious no matter how you look at it.
To the troll.. what an assbutt >.<
I could of yes, I know people that could find anyone on this earth and it’s not hard one bit and then get all there info and i mean ALL of it. But that’s scummy unless of couse the guy you’re trying to find is a douche lol.
yep mix my words like a typical dick head. Obviously you never been in those situations and know nothing about how it’s handled PROPERLY . Now go play in traffic kid.
“the cops calling pretending to be joe blow and then calling back 10 mins later”
What part did I mix? You really have no legitimate response so soon? That was a short debate.
Because the police get told he has hostages and will shot anyone who comes near the house, So they are going to send in with caution hence the SWAT teams are out because they are assuming its a hostage situation based on the info been given. The US Police are trying to stop it but you can spoof you phone number so you appear to be near the location that it is happening
not necessarily. I believe that there are some cases that justify an immediate action, probably when there are already civilian casualties reported and it is deemed that the death count will only get higher after every second spent waiting.
i see, then what would u do? after you find out about them? if they seem clean, would you not do anything? would you be able to find out if they have a person tied up in their basement? 😛 please, tell your secrets. you must have some Xray goggles or something im guessing XD its not about finding out about someone. That doesn’t matter at all, who cares if you find out everything about a person if you don’t know what they’re hiding. you’re telling me you can find out if someone is making bombs or torturing someone in a house just from hacking? yeh sure.
There is ways so stop being a dumb ass and defending retards that can’t do a simple thing and I say simple because it is simple.
then do share the simple ways to do this, at least back up your nonsense with mind blowing straight forward answers instead of trying to avoid. i’m not backing them up but unless there are more logical answers then this is how i see it should be done. they are the ones also protecting us and where would we be without them? i think we’d all be broken in to and robbed or possibly killed by every other corrupt person on this planet. you talk nonsense, i’ll take you not saying anything as a agreement as you just can’t give a straight answer because you don’t know how you would do it yourself. i’ll bet you’re thinking this is some spy movie where they can see through walls knowing whats on the other side.
Ok here’s a straight answer it’s simple because it’s there job.
If emergency response protocol was based on records on file, this would be abused by organized crime. Hide a drug operation in the home of what appear to be the perfect family etc. Even worst, racial profiling based on records on file. “Home of a Muslim Family lets do this.”
Police are doing their best to protect the public. When a SWAT call is falsified, they police need to make an example and crucify the perpertrator when found, and go out of their way to have plenty of media coverage on a reasonable punishment for a prank that wastes emergency resources with the risk of an innocent being killed
Don’t misunderstand me. I am most certainly not saying do nothing at all. I’m saying don’t always burst into a house based on a single phone call, in a house where no one has any connections to crime. It just seems overkill. There are numerous things they could do to solve the problem with less traumatic effect than busting in with SWAT. You just don’t get that over here in UK , well I haven’t personally heard news stories.
thats the most vague answer in the world, thanks for answering my question of you not knowing how to do it yourself. its their job to protect us and thats what they’re doing.
Thanks for trying to twist my words to make your self seem right you sociopathic retard.
Imagine it’s a real situation. Guys broke into a family’s house and hold them hostages. The police should act as if it’s the worst case scenario, better safe than sorry. It’s better to make property damages and traumatize to some extent 100 people, but save 2 people, than to take it easy and spare the property damages and traumas to those 100 people but let the 2 get killed because you took it easy… Don’t you think?
You know why it’s so easy? Because America’s citizens have too much democracy and freedom, understand – they have too many guns. Half the population is armed… What do you expect the police to do?
Investigate what? The person who lives in the house? Why does THAT matter? He’s the one taken hostage. And you don’t know WHO took him hostage. You can find someone if you have info about them and about the terrorist/kidnapper you don’t have any info. You are retarded. I hope nobody else ever is held hostage, but if it happens again I hope it’s you and someone calls in and the SWAT comes in and breaks in and saves your retarded ass… Maybe you’ll change your point of view then. 🙂