Sore ‘Call of Duty’ Loser Calls SWAT Team on His Opponent’s Actual House

Thanks to a Skype call that claimed, “I just killed my mother and I might shoot more people,” the SWAT Team descended on the Long Island home of Rafael Castillo yesterday with more than 60 officers and a helicopter. They stayed for two hours.

But Castillo hadn’t killed anyone. He was instead the victim of a real-life Eric Cartman who took a Call of Duty loss as a chance to royally screw with his opponent, tracing Castillo’s IP address and telling the police that there had been a murder at the Long Island home.

Eventually the truth came out. Castillo’s mother and brother walked outside to tell the SWAT team they were alive and unharmed, but it’d take 20 minutes for Rafael to likewise reassure the police he wasn’t a killer. (He had his headphones on and was playing COD. He couldn’t hear the commotion. These things just write themselves.)

Meanwhile, the cops are now attempting to track down who the hell would place such a hoax. “It was probably just an evil little kid,” one officer told the New York Post.

This thing—where you call the police and have them send a SWAT team to your enemy’s house—is apparently a new Internet trend called #swatting. It’s a phenomenon.

I once made an actual, real-life “Is your refrigerator running?” prank call. And it was nerve-racking. My the times are a-changing.

[H/T: Daily Dot]