News and Industry Happenings

SWAT Team Surround House After CoD Hoax Call

An armed SWAT team, police helicopters and dogs surrounded the Long Island home of a Call of Duty (CoD) player, Rafael Castillo. A hoax call to the emergency services claimed Castillo had just killed his mother and could go on a rampage

According to The New York Post, Castillo was inside his house with headphones on, still playing the game and unaware that a fully armed team of police had surrounded his home. The emergency call was a prank call from a disgruntled gamer, who had just been defeated by Castillo and wanted revenge.

Apparently, it’s part of a growing trend for a game called ‘Swatting’, which sees players call police to a fake crime scene.

The police report that they are trying to trace the hoaxer using “his electronic footprints”.

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Chella Ramanan

Chella hails from the UK and joined Gameindustry.com around the year 2000. It was so many moons ago, she can't quite remember. Back then, the only women you saw in the games industry were in bikinis and vertiginous heels at trade shows - oh how times have changed, kind of. Chella started as a humble reviewer, but soon became our European Correspondent and keeps us on top of industry happenings across the Pond. She tends to like the weird Japanese games we've never heard of, so that's good for making us look all-encompassing and stuff. Chella does like games, so don't be fooled by the copious amount of columns devoted to bemoaning the lack of variety in the industry. When she's not surfing (the sea, not the internet) or camping up mountains, Chella likes a good action RPG (especially if it's sci-fi), anything with a good narrative and like we said, the weirder the better. She's also a regular in the GiN Lounge, but that's just because we like her accent.