A Dangerous Prank Call Leads To A Gamer Playing Counter-Strike 'SWAT-ed' Live On Stream
Some crank calls or bags of flaming excrement left on a doorstep. Those are the pranks that come to mind when thinking about teens messing with one another in the past. Not anymore. In this age of the Internet and gaming scene, the level of pranks have escalated dangerously.
By Sadho Ram — 30 Aug 2014, 11:20 AM — Updated about 10 years ago
Recently, there's been a huge trend of various game-play streamers being "SWAT-ed." For those who aren't aware:
Swatting is a prank that involves falsely telling the police of a dangerous situation so that a SWAT — special weapons and tactics (SWAT) — team is deployed in response, erroneously. The police are led to believe that they need to roll out the guns and armour, leaving the intended victim of the prank literally staring down the barrel of the gun.
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In this case, a Denver-area building was selected for the prank. And the streamer in question was Kootra, a Counter-Strike player who was "trolled" by someone calling the authorities to report an active shooter at the place where he was streaming.
The apparent swatting of a video game player who operates under the moniker ‘Kootra‘
Image via wordpress.comThe incident happened in Colorado, no stranger to “active shooter” tragedy, and in addition to the SWAT raid, had several schools temporarily placed on lockdown due to the phantom threat.
forbes.comMaking the entire situation nearly surreal is the fact that Kootra, whose common name is Jordan Mathewson, was streaming a video game to the Internet when the heavily armed police force entered his location, and detained him.
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While nothing bad happened to Kootra, who is universally praised by the gaming community as a nice guy, the video is pretty chilling nonetheless. It isn't clear who instigated the prank.
The stream continues for some time until a police officer realizes that he is being recorded, at which point he appears to either shut, or otherwise turn off the computer in question. Until that point, the raid was taped, the footage of which was uploaded to YouTube.
techcrunch.com
According to ABC News, Kootra was later released without charge. Officers said they were now trying to trace what they believed was a hoax call, possibly targeting the gamer.
"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 Littleton Police Department said in a statement. "There were no victims or any evidence that a shooting had taken place. If the investigation determines that today's incident was a hoax, those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
A few are criticizing the tactics of the officers on camera, who don't appear to announce themselves as police, and start rifling through Kootra's phone without a warrant, though it's unlikely much will actually come from either accusation.
This trend is a problem because it’s not as if a SWAT team can’t respond in force when someone calls in an active shooter threat. The only protection is to keep one’s address private, though there are many ways for troublemakers to find out someone’s location if they’re determined enough. Still, more needs to be done about being able to trace these fraudulent calls. If not, it seems like this new style of super-prank will continue, wasting not only manpower and resources, but putting lives in danger.
forbes.comKootra, a member of a gaming group called The Creatures, is a popular personality with more than 200,000 Twitter followers. Kootra later indicated that he’s safe:
Dag nabbit that was dern sure an experience. I am all Ok though. Thanks for all the supportive tweets everyone
— Kootra (@Kootra) August 27, 2014