Last night saw Fortnite World Cup Champion Bugha swatted during a livestream on Twitch. This happened just a couple of weeks ago after Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf took home the grand prize of $3 million for becoming the Fortnite World Cup Solo champion.
According to Kotaku, while Bugha was in the middle of a Fortnite Battle Royale match, he was interrupted by his father after being told that armed police at the door. This prompted Bugha to leave the game for around 10 minutes.
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When Bugha returned, he told his teammates that he was swatted and that he was lucky, because one of the officers recognized him since he lives in the same neighborhood. You can watch the two videos below showing Bugha’s reaction to the situation. Luckily, no one was harmed during this situation, but hopefully it will be thoroughly investigated, which will eventually lead to the fake caller being tried in court.
“They come in with guns, bro,” he said, “They literally pulled up, holy shit.”
Swatting is a tactic that consists in calling a police force over a fake emergency and deceiving them into going to someone’s address. It is considered a criminal offense, not only because of the danger that it entails, but also due to the costs of dispatching police officers to investigate a false report. Swatting unfortunately became a strategy used by some gamers to enact revenge on other players after a frustrating gameplay session.
One of the latest examples of swatting happened over the game Call of Duty: WW2 and led to the death of 28-year-old Andrew Finch. This happened in December 2017 and Tyler Barriss, the fake caller, pleaded guilty to 51 federal charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Fortnite World Cup Champion Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf is a 16-year-old player from Pennsylvania who won the $3 million prize a few weeks ago. The Fortnite World Cup featured a prize pool of $30 million and attracted 2.3 million viewers.
