{"id":7526,"date":"2015-02-09T11:53:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T11:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/159.89.236.238\/?p=7526"},"modified":"2015-02-09T11:53:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T11:53:00","slug":"online-gamer-raided-swat-team-front-60000-viewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techworm.net\/2015\/02\/online-gamer-raided-swat-team-front-60000-viewers.html","title":{"rendered":"Online Gamer Raided by SWAT Team in front of 60000 viewers"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Air Force veteran and gamer raided by swat team in front of his viewers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

An armed police posse, prompted by a phone call, raided a popular gamer at his home when he was live streaming to nearly 60,000 viewers on the\u00a0video game website Twitch.<\/p>\n

Joshua Peters, a U.S. Air Force veteran and a avid gamer, who lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was playing browser games on Wednesday when he fell victim to an apparent “swatting” prank.<\/p>\n

Swatting is the practice where a prank phone call is placed to the police with false bait information, base on which they then respond with the deployment of SWAT team or armed officers at the target of the swatter.<\/p>\n

The SWAT teams are trained to kill or maim and are generally briefed to take down the target before asking any questions and therefore such pranks can often lead serious injuries.<\/p>\n

William Anderson, St. Cloud Chief of Police, confirmed the incident to ABC News and is under investigation.<\/p>\n

Peters earns a living by streaming his sessions of\u00a0Clash of Clans<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0RuneScape<\/em>. \u00a0Peters who is known to the online gaming community like Twitch as Koopatroopa787, was playing with his noise-canceling headphones at his residence where his mother and brothers also lived. At around 5:40 mark on\u00a0his live Twitch.TV\u00a0stream, he excused himself from the gaming session after his\u00a0mother called out to him, saying, “Cops are here, one second.”<\/p>\n

He then later returned to close the stream as he held back tears, discussing the events that had just unfolded. \u00a0Before ending the stream, Koopatroopa787 addressed his attacker,<\/p>\n

\u201cI see you posting my address. I had police point a gun at my little brothers because of you. They could have been shot, they could have died because you chose to SWAT my stream,” he said, addressing the anonymous attacker. “I don’t give a ****\u00a0about what you have against me, or what I did to you. For that, I am at a loss for words. Your gripe is with me so let it be with me and do not involve my family in any way, shape or form with this. They don’t deserve that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Speaking to the Guardian the day after the attack, Peters said he had no idea why he was targeted. \u201cThere are no possible persons who I can think would do something like this to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said that \u201cMy channel\u2019s not crazy big, like some of these other mainstream streamers. I just didn\u2019t expect that. I was going upstairs, and before I knew it, my face was on a tile on the ground, hands wide open and a bunch of police officers with assault rifles.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n