Popular streamer Turner “Tfue” Tenney appeared to be a victim of swatting during a recent Twitch stream.
During a December 23 broadcast, Tfue was quietly sitting at his desk playing Minecraft when there was a knock at the door. The insistent knocking was accompanied by someone shouting “come out with your hands up.”
Tfue immediately pulls off his headset and yells back, “What, I’m here.” At this point, the 22-year-old doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. But as he gets closer to the door, Tfue can be heard saying, “I have my hands up, officer.”
He repeats this a few times until he is too far away to be heard clearly. The conversation Tfue then has with the police officers cannot be heard either.
After interacting with the officers, Tfue sits back down at his desk. Seemingly shaken up by the encounter, Tfue remains silent for a while. He nervously laughs and then takes a drink. Tfue continues to sigh while trying to get back into the mindset of streaming Minecraft. A donation came in soon after that read “get swatted.”
“Nice man,” Tfue replied. “You got me. Got me real good.”
While Tfue remained calm after the surprise encounter with police, swatting is actually a very serious matter. Swatting is when someone conjures up an emergency situation at a specific address in an attempt to get police officers to arrive on the premise. The officers will often expect something dangerous, like an armed person or a bomb, making the situation even more concerning.
Last year, a 26-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a swatting “prank” led police to kill an innocent man. After the two men had gotten into a fight while playing Call of Duty, and Tyler Rai Barriss told police that there was a hostage situation with a gun involved at Andrew Finch’s home. Finch was unaware of the situation when he opened the door and ended up being shot by the police officers surrounding the property.
SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. This is a team of specially trained officers who respond to the most volatile situations. This includes riots and bomb threats. When someone calls the police and claims someone is armed and dangerous, they will usually send in the SWAT unit to properly deal with the high-stakes situation.
Since streamers are often broadcasting in real time, they become victims of swatting pranks when a viewer wants to see the situation play out on camera. They may also be waiting to see the streamer’s reaction. Streamers are also swatted when viewers or opponents get mad at them or want to see them lose a match.
Swatting is illegal and dangerous. Tfue most likely realized how lucky he was to sit back down at his computer, hence the shocked expression and nervous laughter.
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