Gamers who were watching Kootra, a member for The Creatures, saw him get “swatted” during a stream of Counter Strike: Global Offensive. The video was posted on YouTube by The Creatures the following day, showing Kootra reacting to the building being cleared and his following takedown by the SWAT team.
The Creatures were “swatted” as part of a prank that aims to trick emergency services into sending emergency response teams, such as SWAT, to a false situation. The early days of “swatting” were prevalent to Hollywood with false calls sending SWAT teams to Sean Combs, Ashton Kutcher, Tom Cruise, Justin Bieber, and others on reports of violence at the celebrity residences, as our own Kim LaCapria reported .
While having someone “swatted” is a felony and punishable by prison time and fines, the more technologically adept use techniques such as caller ID spoofing, TTY, magicJacks and other methods that prevent local police from making an immediate arrest. Speaking to The Verge , Brian Sims with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department stated that,
“Unfortunately for us, with the new spoof cards and the magicJacks, and everything else coming out, it’s becoming more and more difficult,” he said. “It’s very labor intensive. It’s not like you got swatted last night and I can have someone in custody today.”
However, people like the one who got The Creatures “swatted” tend to give themselves away for the recognition and bragging rights. This seems to be the case as a Twitter user by the name of @ScrewPain has already claimed responsibility despite the consequences that are related to making such a claim.
Arrested on stream by yours truly @KEEMSTARx @TheCreaturesHub
— Pain (@ScrewPain) August 27, 2014
In the case of The Creatures being “swatted,” the video shows the entry by the SWAT team and the detention of Kootra, who was later released. In the video he states, “I think we’re getting ‘swatted’” moments before automatic weapons and loud voices drown out all other audio.
While no one was hurt, The Denver Channel reported that the nearby Littleton Public Schools were placed on lockdown and area business were evacuated due to reports of an active shooter in the area. Pictures were posted to Twitter of people being evacuated.
pic.twitter.com/KDXhjIoBKm
— Matt Zenthoefer (@ze_brew) August 27, 2014
We will update you on this story as it develops.
Image Source | Shutterstock.
