Victim’s emotional response to swatting hoax is difficult, but extremely important to watch

I have to be honest, I don't understand the reasoning behind swatting. It's one of those strange things that really started to take off last year in 2014, and it usually involves targeting Twitch or YouTube personalities during their livestream; although, there have been incidents of other individuals, like a Bungie employee as well as a Bukkit programmer.

Joshua Peters was the recent victim of a swatting prank. On February 5th, while Joshua Peters was harmlessly streaming a game of RuneScape, his house was swatted, resulting in a team of 10 police officers, armed with guns, crashing in on his home. At one point, the officers pointed their guns at his family, which included Peters' younger brothers.

Of course an event like that can shake up anyone, so Peters went on camera to address the hoaxer, and explain just what kind of horrible emotional damage he has not only caused Joshua, but his poor little brothers as well.

"I had police point a gun at my little brothers, because of you…" Peters states as he tears up on camera, knowing that his hoaxer was still watching. Apparently the hoaxer had Peters' address, which he then used to send police to under a false claim. "They could have been shot, they could have died…" Peters' continues, obviously very shaken up about the entire matter.

While the story is extremely sad and quite terrifying, as this could potentially happen to anyone, there is a somewhat happy ending to this whole ordeal. Due to the overwhelmingly positive response and support from Peters' fans, he announced that he'd once again start streaming the next day. You can watch the Peters' response below. And seriously guys, can we be mature about this and stop with this swatting bullshit?

Also, if you want to learn more about the dangers of Swatting, take a look at our piece where our senior editor, Lance Liebl, speaks to a former member of SWAT and a lawyer about the ramifications of such a prank.