Bugha, the world champion in Fortnite: Battle Royale has not only fans. Someone who wished him harm performed swatting against him and sent an armed task force that interrupted him live on stream. Fortunately, the situation ended well.
What happened? Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf is one of the most famous Fortnite players in the world. He won the solo tournament at the Fortnite World Championship 2019 and thus earned 3 million USD (even though after tax he was left with just under half).
However, the 16-year-old boy does not only have fans. Malicious individuals sent an armed police task force against him in a case of so-called swatting.
The police officers surprised Bugha during a live stream on Twitch. Bugha’s father came in the middle of the game and said that armed police officers were at the door. Shortly after, Bugha suddenly disappeared and his avatar in the game burst into flames in the storm. His teammates were accordingly confused: “Did he just leave in the middle of the game?”
How did the swatting end? Bugha was gone for about 10 minutes to clarify the situation. Fortunately for him, the clarification was quite quick, as one of the officers present lives in Bugha’s neighborhood and recognized the boy.
It was therefore quickly clear that no violent crime was taking place in Bugha’s house and that it was a bad joke.
Neighbor cop recognizes Bugha again
This is how Bugha reacted: After the incident, Bugha came back online and his two teammates Bizzle and Dubs, who had actually won the match without him, wanted to know what had happened: “I was swatted,” Bugha said, still visibly shaken. “They just come in with weapons. They actually showed up, holy shit!”
Why swatting is a big problem: Fortunately, the situation with Bugha ended well. However, swatting is a serious problem. The responding forces do not know that it is a cruel fake. They assume that violent crimes or hostage situations are imminent. They show up armed and are consequently tense. They expect that their own lives are in danger when they arrive at the supposed crime scene.
There has already been a case where an innocent person was shot by the police because they believed he was an armed criminal. But even without such drastic consequences, swatting is a problem.
Because a task force responding to such a fake call may be missing when a real crime is taking place nearby, and the officers may not be available at a critical moment because they are pulling a harmless Twitch streamer off the screen.
Moreover, not everyone affected reacts as calmly as Bugha. For many who have been swatted, it was a traumatic experience where they had to worry about their safety and that of their loved ones.
