Two charged by police after swatting gamer

Swatting is nothing new in the game streaming community – especially with the abundance of popular streamers. It's a dangerous "prank" for anyone to pull and has resulted in a number of events that have left people extremely shaken up.

A 21-year-old man Coventry, England, Robert McDaid, has been charged by police after calling the SWAT team on a US-based 20-year-old streamer named Tyran Dobbs in 2015. Allegedly McDaid posed as Dobbs in a call to a terrorism hotline where he claimed to be armed with a fun, several bags of explosives and three hostages that he would kill unless $15,000 (£12,000) was delivered in a red bag to his address.

The police took the threat seriously and raided the real Dobbs' home, where they reportedly ignored Dobb's father and cousin explaining there was no hostage situation and that Dobbs was actually asleep. Dobbs was shot in the face and chest with rubber bullets, the rubber bullets broke the bones in Dobbs' face and bruised his lungs.

It was then determined by police that Dobbs was innocent and that he had been set up. Police traced the original call back to McDaid, who shifted the blame and claimed that an American gamer named Zachary Lee had requested that McDaid help him swat Dobbs.

Both McDaid and Lee have been charged with three offenses, including conspiracy to produce false information and hoax – with a maximum of a 20-year prison sentence.

[Independent.co.uk]