SWAT team arrests prominent Twitch streamer and her entire family during Hearthstone livestream

Swatting may not be the latest type of internet hoax, but it still presents a quite significant threat to popular game streamers who sometimes have to deal with overzealous haters. Unfortunately, a popular 28-year-old Twitch streamer and her family have now fallen victim to exactly this type of dangerous prank a few days ago, while parts of the incident were even caught on video.

During her livestream on February 9, Twitch streamer Alliestrasza received unexpected guests when a fully armed SWAT team entered her Los Angeles house and cuffed the young woman and her family outside. The according video of the aforementioned livestream is not available in its entirety, but one of two short video clips shows the responding officers entering and sweeping through her room. The SWAT raid was apparently caused by an unknown prank caller, who claimed that a woman had shot her husband, barricaded herself in the bathroom and threatened to shoot everyone trying to come near her.

Alliestrasza, who goes by the real name of Alexandra Macpherson and is mostly known for her streams of Blizzard's popular digital trading card game Hearthstone, has since confirmed on Twitter that she and her entire family are safe, but that she was profoundly shaken up by being swatted. She further praised the police officers for how they handled the situation, noting that they "obviously had to take the threat seriously". Last but not least, it should be mentioned that these extremely dangerous and sometimes life-threatening "swatting" harassments are a criminal offense and therefore punishable by fines and imprisonment in the United States.

Buy a Battle.net Store gift card for Hearthstone on Amazon