Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel has revealed that when he was targeted in a swatting raid while streaming on Twitch, the police officers involved seemed to suspect he was a meth addict.
SWAT raids have been a sad reality for streamers for years, with viewers using hoax emergency calls to elicit an armed police response to streamers’ homes, having potentially fatal repercussions.
As one of the biggest names on Twitch, xQc is all too familiar with these raids, having seen many of his peers go through them and been a victim himself.
Luckily, xQc hasn’t suffered too much at the hands of SWAT raids, but he’s told the story of a time when they thought there was much more going on than being a simple Twitch streamer.
While reacting to some videos during his Twitch stream, xQc decided to speak up about the time he was swatted, laughing at how strange the situation was.
“I think they thought I was, like, a meth addict,” he said after explaining how they searched his house for threats. “They kept asking ‘Dude, when was the last time you’ve eaten?’ and I was like ‘Six hours ago.’ Like, ‘No, dude, give me the truth man. When was the last time you got food?’”
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He added that they also questioned the last time he went to bed and slept, believing that he was “a crazy meth head that’s been up for days not eating any food.”
While xQc can look back fondly at the situation and laugh about it, it doesn’t make the swatting any less concerning.
While some streamers are able to take measures to prevent SWAT raids with their local police departments, the repercussions can be serious. We’ve seen streamer’s parents have their homes swatted and H3H3 said a swatter “attempted to murder” him.
The issue still remains a serious danger to content creators, but fortunately xQc is able to laugh about the situation now.