Fortnite's Teen Champ Swatted During Livestream

After the recent string of mass shootings in California, Ohio and Texas — and the easily disprovable scapegoating of video games that followed them — we were reminded this past weekend that swatting is still an issue. Teenage Fortnite champion Bugha was targeted this time around; fortunately, he is safe.

According to Kotaku, Kyle Giersdorf — known to Fortnite fans as Bugha — was playing Fortnite on his Twitch stream Sunday evening when his father informed him that armed police officers were at the door. Bugha reportedly left the stream for around ten minutes before eventually coming back to confirm that, yes, armed officers of the law had come into his home with guns. It's unclear what kind of call was made to have the officers respond at Bugha's residence, but in most cases of swatting, police are responding to threats of immediate danger (i.e. an armed intruder, a kidnapper, etc.).

Luckily, it seems one of the officers who showed up at the home knew who Bugha was, and that prevented the incident from escalating any further.

There's no word on whether or not police have identified the caller. It does seem apparent, however, that the penalties for swatting are not doing much to dissuade people from engaging in the act. Swatting can have real life-or-death consequences, as we learned when a Kansas man was shot to death after an angry Call of Duty player swatted the wrong address. But while serious criminal charges were pursued for those involved in that incident, we don't tend to hear a lot about what occurs after a case of swatting in which no lives are lost.

We'll update you should we hear anything more about those who swatted Bugha and very much put him in harms way. In the meantime, the streamer picked right back up where he left off after the incident, and it appears he will continue to stream for those interested in checking out his channel.