Alterna Comics Publisher SWATted During Livestream
Alterna Comics Peter Simeti was the victim of a SWATting attack during his livestream on YouTube Tuesday evening.
Simeti, who has been the target of harassment in the past, was about thirty minutes into his “State of Alterna” stream when the police arrived in response to what has been described as a 911 call reporting a knife attack on his girlfriend.
I just had two guns pointed at me tonight because someone made a call to the police and gave them my address along with a falsified report.
I'm shook up, but everything is OK now.
I'm going to talk to the police tomorrow and see if I can find out more.
— Peter Simeti (@petersimeti) February 13, 2019
I'm grateful that the police were thorough and quickly assessed the situation. It was the scariest thing I'd ever been through, but their judgement in the situation is the reason I'm even alive right now and able to tweet this.
Things could have gone much worse.
— Peter Simeti (@petersimeti) February 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/petersimeti/status/1095559993607233536
“SWATting” is the term used to describe a situation that arises when police are given a false report to provoke a SWAT team response to a victim’s residence or business, creating a situation where the target of the swatting is in danger of being injured or killed. This has happened at least once, in January 2018 when Tyler Barriss was arrested in Los Angeles for allegedly SWATting Andrew Finch, who was fatally shot by police after he opened the front door when the police responded to Barriss’ false report of a domestic shooting and hostage situation.
Last year, Simeti became the target of hostility as a result of his company’s social media policy, which recommends that creators “not use block bots/blind blocking/block chains or any other kind of program or practice that is used to block thousands of people, blindly en masse”. Critics of the policy took to social media to call Alterna “Alt-Right Comics” and to accuse Simeti of being in league with the Comicsgate movement.
Our Social Media Code of Conduct has now been publicly made available to see on our Submissions page: https://t.co/mFzOHqMmUD pic.twitter.com/AqOYHkwfvI
— Alterna Comics (@ALTERNACOMICS) August 30, 2018
There were sixty-four viewers watching the stream live when the incident occurred. According to YouTube user Death Belle, “It was pretty scary, I was in the chat. Cops sounded intense at the beginning. Mellowed out quickly though which is good.”
The owner of 1st Print Comics, David Inguagiato, was on the stream with Simeti when the police arrived.
https://twitter.com/2ndprints/status/1095526382191476736
We reached out to both Simeti and Inguagiato, and so far have not heard back, although Inguagiato has spoken with Bounding Into Comics, telling them, “So we were just talking on the live stream when Peter heard banging. He excused himself and got up to answer the door. From what I heard it sounded like two police officers entering the apartment. They asked where his girlfriend was and to show his hands. Peter was clearly shocked by this. The police asked who he was and he responded. After a little bit of that the officers figured out that the call was bogus.”
After a meeting with law enforcement officials, Simeti sent out this update:
Update: Just got back from meeting with the police and an investigation has been opened.
As a result, I can't comment further on this situation but I'm glad they are taking this very seriously and have been fully briefed on the extent of the matter.
Thanks everyone.
— Peter Simeti (@petersimeti) February 13, 2019
The live video has since been made private, as it could now be included as evidence in the investigation. On Friday, Simeti posted this update on the situation:
https://youtu.be/EtnqVdCNaqU
We will update as more information becomes available.
