On 5th January, ImperialHal became a victim of swatting (an act of faking an emergency call under false pretenses to harm an unsuspecting person), while he was queuing in Apex Legends on Twitch.
The event occurred during the 7th hour of his stream as the officers started banging on Dosen’s door while asking him to “step out” and get down on the ground.
Dosen immediately cooperated with the authorities and followed their instructions and was released by the officers soon enough once they realized the situation at hand and understood what had occurred. “It was pretty civil” Hal explained and went into further detail, “they knew the situation. Yeah, you’re playing video games, you’re streaming, and you got swatted, use a VPN.”
The entire ordeal that lasted less than a minute was not only witnessed by the viewers of Imperialhal but also his in-game teammates Ryan “ImMadness” Schlieve and Eric “Snip3down” Wrona who were waiting for him in the lobby and understandably, were worried for their friend’s safety.
Although this isn’t the first time someone has been swatted. Recently Tfue was also a victim in a similar incident where he was swatted during his Minecraft stream back in December. In 2019, Andrew Finch was shot and killed by Kansas police due to being swatted unintentionally as the perpetrators got the wrong address for their victim.
The prank caller was soon apprehended and banned from online games for a period of two years and sentenced to 15 months in prison along with a $2,500 restitution fine.
