Kyle “Bugha” Giersdof, last month’s Fortnite World Cup winner, was swatted during one of his most recent streams. After taking the Fortnite World Cup, Giersdof took home some newfound fame among the Fortnite community, as well as a cool $3 million in prize money. Giersdof streams on Twitch daily to an audience of over 640,000 followers.
For those unfamiliar with swatting, it’s typically seen as a “prank” where someone calls in a false police report, involving a shooting or hostage situation, prompting emergency services to send in a swat team to check on the address. Back in 2017, a dispute between two Call of Duty players resulted in one of the two players attempting to swat the other. Police showed up to the wrong house and accidentally killed an innocent man who wasn’t even a gamer. Other swatting incidents have resulted in injury and very stressful situations where police have had to break into homes. The practice is seen as highly illegal, and new measures are being taken by emergency services to combat the issue.
In the videos posted by Game Rant, Giersdof can be heard talking to his father about the police coming to the door. Moments later he returns to the stream saying that he just got swatted. Thankfully, in this case, the officer on duty knew Giersdof and his family since they lived in the same neighborhood. The officer likely suspected that the call was suspicious and acted accordingly. Swatting has forced many popular streamers to reach out to their local authorities so that they can make sure nothing dangerous happens to them or anyone around them while they’re live on camera.
Swatting is incredibly dangerous, and isn’t limited to only streamers. Individual YouTubers, celebrities, developers and those in the general public have all been effected by swatting. The FBI reportedly deals with up to 400 cases of swatting every year. Thankfully, very few of those have actually resulted in someone’s death.
Going forward, the issue still clearly persists, and it’s a bit ridiculous that perpetrators still feel it’s an okay way to prank someone or get back at someone who might’ve beaten them in an online video game. Members of Giersdof’s family were clearly home, and could’ve been hurt in a stupid attempt at a prank. Swatting also wastes the time of police officers who could obviously be spending their on-duty hours focusing on actual crimes. It’s sad that this is something streamers and gamers in general still have to worry about today.
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Source: Game Rant
