Swatting calls: Online pranks turn into real-life tragedies

📱Discover the dangers of swatting calls.🕵️ 🚀 Improve your online protection with a few clicks 🔥 Get the exclusive YouTube offer: https://content.nordvpn.com/475pQci *** What is a swatting call? Is swatting illegal? This video analyzes the swatting phenomenon and its dangers. Learn the truth behind an online prank that brings devastating consequences. Contents: 00:00 Intro 00:19 What is swatting? 00:48 Swatting calls against streamers 01:06 The most tragic swatting case *** Online threats can have deadly consequences in real life. Swatting is probably the most shocking illustration of that. But why? Buckle up. We’re about to dig deeper into this phenomenon. What is swatting? Swatting is the crime of deceiving an emergency service and sending it to someone’s address. Usually, the caller declares they committed or are about to commit a crime. Then, they give another person’s address to the police. When law enforcement arrives, especially a SWAT team, they find out it was a hoax. This is where it gets interesting. Such calls are far from innocent pranks. They might end in tragedy. Most commonly, the victims of swatting are celebrities or… Streamers. The internet is swarming with videos of innocent gamers dealing with SWAT teams during streams. In their testimonials, streamers confess that after a swatting experience, they had to deal with mental issues such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression. But that’s not even the worst outcome of swatting calls. In 2017, two teenagers, Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill, had a dispute after a Call of Duty match. Viner threatened to swat Gaskill, who provided his former address and said he’d be waiting. Viner then sent this address to Tyler Barriss, a convict with a record of making false alarm calls. Barriss contacted the police. He confessed to killing his father and threatened to murder the rest of the family. Law enforcement rushed to the address Barriss provided, thinking they would have to deal with a dangerous shooter. Instead, it was an innocent father of two, Andrew Finch. He was the current owner of the house that previously belonged to Shane Gaskill, the Call of Duty player mentioned earlier. The police shot and killed Andrew, thinking he was reaching for a gun. The man had zero awareness of what was happening. A prank call turned into a disaster. Even though swatting calls are illegal and punishable by law, they continue to leave real-life scars. *** 📌 OUR SOCIAL MEDIA 📱 🔵FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/NordVPN/ 🔵INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/nordvpn/ 🔵TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@nordvpn 🔵TWITTER: https://twitter.com/NordVPN #Swatting #SwattingCall #OnlineThreats