UPDATE: A more indepth look, via Emerson Damerson, at “swatting” in the online gaming sphere — The dark side of livestreaming entertainment, by Richard Lewis, The Kernel, October 12th, 2014.
Live Stream Captures SWAT Team Charging Into Gamer’s Office
by Cate Matthews
The Huffington Post
August 28, 2014
When YouTuber Jordan Mathewson began his live stream Wednesday, playing a first person-shooter video game, he wasn’t expecting to end his session on the floor with real guns trained on him.
Watch the video from local Denver news:
Mathewson and the rest of his gaming collective apparently fell victim to a prank known as “swatting,” where hoaxers force an armed police response by calling in a false report on rival gamers.
Mathewson was about two hours into a game of “Counter-Strike” at the collective’s office in Littleton, Colorado, when he heard a commotion outside his door. A SWAT team was searching the place, and they were about to charge into his office. As seen in the video, he quickly picked up on what was happening.
“Uh oh, this isn’t good,” Mathewson said, pausing the game. “They’re clearing rooms. What in the world? I think we’re getting swatted.”
Things got intense fast. The SWAT team stormed into his room, guns at the ready, shouting at him to get on the ground. When Mathewson did so, slowly, with the movements of someone who still didn’t quite believe what was happening.
“Don’t you f—–g move,” another said.
The Littleton Police Department later told media it had received a call regarding a hostage situation in the building. “The caller claimed to have shot two co-workers, held others hostage, and threatened to shoot them. He stated that if the officers entered he would shoot them as well,” the department’s statement said, according to local outlet ABC 7News.
As Police Chief Doug Stephens told the outlet: “This is not a game. This is not an online game. We have real guns with real bullets and there”™s a potential there for some tragedy.”
Mathewson himself was eventually released by police.
Twitter user @ScrewPain has claimed responsibility for the prank, though it’s not clear if the user was actually behind the swatting. In a followup story, ABC 7News said Littleton police brought “someone in for questioning in connection to the incident, but that person was released, pending a further investigation.”