Usually, the worst you can expect a Call of Duty opponent to do is to be a little salty after losing a match—maybe they'll curse a little, maybe they'll rate you badly on Xbox Live or something. But calling a SWAT team on you? Dang, bro.


The New York Post reports that a prank caller used Skype to lie to the police, claiming that he was 17 year-old Rafael Castillo—and that he had just killed his mother and might kill more.

The cops took this supposed threat seriously, and they sent in more than 60 officers with weapons to Castillo's home in Long Beach. There was even a special operations unit there, along with choppers and fire trucks. But during the two hour stand-off, the police found that the mother was alive. It became obvious that something was amiss.


The police tried to call down Rafael Castillo for twenty minutes, but he was too engrossed in his game to hear them. (Of course he was.) Eventually Castillo did come out and police could see there was no danger, thankfully.

This is a small taste of what this mess looked like:

Police say that the disgruntled gamer who called the prank in probably tracked Castillo's IP address to figure out his home address. Earlier, Castillo had received threats from his Call of Duty opponent, who was upset that he had lost against Castillo.

The prank pulled by the Call of Duty player over Skype may sound familiar, as "swatting"—calling the police on someone—is an old griefing method that unfortunately uses up a lot of valuable resources. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.


(Image via New York Post)

Call of Duty loser calls in SWAT team hoax on kid who beat him [New York Post]

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