To set the scene, imagine that you’re sitting in your living room, watching movies on TV or cooking burritos in microwave or perhaps settling in to play video games on your console, controller in hand. It’s your usual evening. Without preamble, the police smash down your door, flood into your house, point guns at you and your children, then handcuff you and escort you outside.

After several minutes of confusion and distress, you finally learn that the police raided your house because an anonymous person called to say that you (or someone unknown) had killed someone in your house and taken your family hostage.

What is described above is a criminal act now known as “swatting” and it is often directed against video game live streamers for the entertainment of the perpetrator of the crime, the “anonymous caller,” against a victim, often a livestreamer.

Yesterday, the launch day of Google’s new video game livestreaming service YouTube Gaming–competitor Twitch.tv (Twitch Interactive, Inc.)–YouTuber Markee Dragon, “aka Marcus Eikenberry in real life,” was swatted. The caller incited the local sheriff’s department to storm his house, hold him at gunpoint, and handcuff him and his adult son. This happened following a tip from an anonymous caller stating that he had killed his wife and was holding his family hostage with a pipe bomb.

This happened during a planned eight hour livestream appearing on YouTube Gaming and Twitch with Eikenberry playing in CCP Games (CCP hf) sandbox science fiction space MMORPG EVE Online. Eikenberry is a popular streamer on Twitch and streams six days a week with an average of 400 viewers at a time. During the stream, Eikenberry found himself featured on YouTube’s homepage and his viewership skyrocketed to over 6,000 viewers.

This is likely how the trouble started.

“My house is not a shouting house, the only time anyone shouts in my house is to tell a cat to get off the counter. So I went out into the hallway to see what was happening, and as I left the room, there were officers pointing guns at me,” Eikenberry said on stream after the ordeal.

A video of the swatting and his discussion can be viewed on Twitch.

“They handcuffed me, and had me kneel outside, and they cleared the whole house. My son who was asleep, he’s 22, but they handcuffed him too. Fortunately they didn’t handcuff my younger children, but I spent 15 -20 minutes in handcuffs, while they figured out what was happening.  One of the officers was friends with my son, and as I went on to explain what swatting was, he agreed with me. The older officers had not heard of ‘swatting’.”

See this article on EVEnews24.com for a full transcript of the video.

The police action fortunately ended without incident and, after the sheriffs discovered nothing going on in the house, they removed the handcuffs from Eikenberry and his son. The situation could have gone much worse.

Swatting: Dangerous, anonymous criminal trickery that abuses emergency services

As mentioned above, a sudden gain in popularity or viewership can be a trigger for this sort of event for a livestreamer. It is chilling to know that if you happen to livestream, become popular, and someone discovers where you live, they could send the police to knock down your door.

In late December, 2013 Twitch streamer PhantomL0rd, James Varga, was targeted by swatting when a caller reported a violent crime in progress at his home. Police entered his home, and Varga was removed from his home in handcuffs and placed in a police car while the authorities investigated.

Photo credit: Phil Burnell, aka DarkSydePhil on YouTube.

In June of this year, YouTuber DarkSydePhil, Phil Burnell, became the victim of swatting when a SWAT team assembled outside his home. He had previously informed authorities that he could become the victim of a swatting so the police department first attempted to investigate the phoned in report of a crime occurring before entering his residence.

Some YouTubers and streamers suggest that if you have any popularity at all as a streamer you should get in contact with your local police departments and warn them about the phenomenon of swatting. It’s especially problematic that Eikenberry mentions some of the older officers do not know what swatting is (although it’s common enough to make the news) but the younger ones did.

Security researcher Brian Krebs, who is not a livestreamer, himself has been targeted by swatting—although he also informed local authorities of the phenomena, the department in his home town did not take him seriously. In March, 2013, Krebs found himself surrounded by police with guns drawn while he was “tidying up the house (since we were expecting company for dinner.)”

These were not the first incidents of swatting and they will not be the last. Although it is a recognized criminal act to make a false report, the activity is largely treated as a sort of “prank” by those involved. Very few people who commit swatting get caught, mostly due to phone spoofing technology and the use of VIOP to commit the crime—making them difficult to trace.

However, in 2014 one such swatter was caught in Louisiana and convicted of a federal crime, sentenced to 25 to life.

It is fortunate that wielding emergency response in this manner has not ended up with injuries or death to date. However, this is certainly not likely to be the last swatting either.

Featured image credit: Marcus Eikenberry, aka MarkeeDragon on YouTube