Gamer's 25 Year Sentence For Swatting Is A Hoax

Swatting, the obnoxious prank in which a gamer calls the cops on another gamer in order to get a SWAT team sent to their house, has been growing in number. We saw one example last month, and the latest happened to well-known gamer Kootra recently (video after the jump). A report has been circulating saying the person behind the prank was sentenced to 25 years in prison — that's a hoax, folks.

As is often the case during these pranks, the SWAT raid was caught on the gamer's webcam and later uploaded to YouTube for all to enjoy. During the video, we see Kootra ordered to the floor and cuffed, later questioned by police before they eventually shut the video feed down.

Shortly after the event happened, news began spreading that the gamer responsible was a 15-year-old named Paul Horner from Louisiana, and that he'd been sentenced to 25 years to life in federal prison on charges of domestic terrorism. The news was retweeted and published by other news sources, but it was all an elaborate hoax.

The news originated from the website National Report, an official-looking parody website that claimed the teenager was the first charged for swatting (not necessarily responsible for Kootra's event, but as with the Internet, assumptions were made).

VIA: Pocket-Lint