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Today, during a DrDisRespect stream, the 6'8 gaming legend fell victim to a harmful online prank called Swatting.
-The clips that prove the swatting took place
Clip 1
Clip 2
During his stream, the Doc asked for "one second" and then went AFK for over 15 minutes. During this away period, the words "sheriff's department!" could be heard, as well as the phrase "check the closet!" by an unknown voice, presumably law enforcement. Then, DrDisRespect turned webcam so it faced downward and the stream went offline.
DrDisRespect later came back online, citing the disturbance as merely "internet problems.
-Not a joke
Swatting is an extremely irresponsible and dangerous online prank that involves calling local police and tricking them into believing dangerous criminal activity is occurring inside of a streamer's home. Online viewers looking to cause chaos and watch the "swat" unfold live often lie about hostage situations or other deadly scenarios that cause local law enforcement to react immediately, without any real verification of the report.
To be clear, swatting is a serious crime and, if caught, people making false reports to the police can serve jail time or pay fines as high as $10,000. Not only does it put the streamer at risk, but it is a huge waste of time and interferes with the polices ability to "actually" save lives and prevent crime.
In one tragic case in 2017, a completely innocent bystander who address was mistakingly given by a Call of Duty player was killed by respondings officers. The guilty gamer was a serial and repeat swat prankster that made the deadly call over a $1.50 bet turned sour.
Yes, you read that right -- $1.50. Only he got the address wrong and got a complete stranger killed.
- The best way to handle being swatted
High praise to DrDisRespect for ignoring the disturbance and not giving the swat pranksters watching the stream the satisfaction of his reaction. While sowing chaos and disturbing the streamer is the goal of swatters, streamers can help destroy the entertainment factor by refusing to react, keeping calm, and returning to the stream with as little interruptions as possible.
What can you do to help stop swatting? Spread the word that it is a serious crime with very real punishments. Involuntary manslaughter and other charges have all been successfully charged in swatting cases, and that means prison time.
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Comments :3
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level 1 Kris_Mitchell
Mar 14, 2018
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Just a FYI, the guy that was killed in the 2017 swatting incident wasntr the actual COD player. It was a fake address that was given out and so the man that was killed was totally innocent and not even involved in the video game to begin with. As if it could get any worse. An innocent bystander got killed, on his front porch.
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level 1 Nick
Mar 14, 2018
@Kris_MitchellWow, that is even worse. Will change the article to reflect that.
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level 1 Brigand231
Sep 12, 2018
@NickIt's been changed but is still inaccurate. The false address was NOT "mistakenly given". It was a very deliberate act. Also, the person doing the swatting was not a CoD player either, but someone acting on behalf of one of the players, a swatter for hire if you will.
All of this is publicly available information from multiple sources such as https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/30/574789231/police-arrest-suspect-in-fatal-swatting-prank when this article was written. It was not his first run in with the law.
The inaccuracies here and complete lack our sources cited comes off as incredibly sloppy and unprofessional in my opinion. You might want to have words with whomever your source is.
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