A Twitch streamer's grandparents are the latest victims of the "swatting" trend, where a person makes a false gun or bomb threat and tries to get a SWAT team to respond and storm the house of whoever their target is. Twitch streamers are often victims of this kind of crime, as the people who think they're making a hilarious prank want to see the SWAT team burst in and arrest the streamer in real time. This incident is the latest of many, as the FBI estimates that there are 400 cases of "swatting" annually, and it occurred Monday night.Swatting became known to the FBI as early as 2008, and the disturbing trend has only become more common as the internet has continued to grow the culture around streaming. Twitch streamers are often the targets of swatting. For instance, in 2019, just three days after the Fortnite World Cup Finals, when 16-year-old Kyle Giersdorf won the title for best Fortnite player, he was swatted while streaming live. Swatting is not a prank and has led to injuries and even death in the past.Twitch streamer and member of the League of Legends team Gen. G, supcaitlin, revealed through Twitter on Thursday that during the previous night, someone attempted to swat her but instead sent the special weapons assault team to her grandparents' house. The SWAT teams burst in like they're supposed to because they're only supposed to be called when whatever's going on is a crisis situation. When someone lies and the crisis isn't real, the authorities don't know that. Unfortunately, swatting can hurt Twitch streamers' homes and health. The streamer, supcaitlin, also known as Brooke Mauro, is of Singaporean descent, and she said on stream that while her grandparents weren't harmed, they speak very little English and were confused and badly scared by the ordeal.
Twitch states that swatting is when someone makes up a report and lies to emergency services in an attempt to make them dispatch a large number of armed police officers to an address. In one notorious instance, a serial swatter named Tyler Barriss was charged with making an interstate hoax that resulted in a death. He swatted a kid over an argument on Call of Duty: WWII, but he reported the wrong address, and as a result, an innocent father of two was killed. The maximum penalty for the hoax charge is life in prison, but Barriss was sentenced to 20 years.
Swatting is a serious problem that not only wastes the time of police who could be out helping people who actually need it but potentially harms victims by breaking their property, scaring them, and possibly even hurting or killing them. In this instance, the so-called "prankster" could have given two elderly people a heart attack. That's not even a turn of phrase, as in 2020, a 60-year-old man was swatted by someone who wanted his Twitter handle, and the shock of the situation caused his heart to fail.
Source: Dexerto