ORCHARD PARK, NY — Last month, Daniel Keem, an Orchard Park resident who has several million subscribers to his YouTube channel, fell victim to an Internet prank that police say is no laughing matter.
"Who the hell's calling me?" Keem, known as KEEMSTAR, said in the live stream of him playing the video game, Fortnite. "Hello?"
It turns out, Orchard Park Police were on the other end of the line.
"Yea, everything's fine. Did you guys get a call?" he could be heard saying.
Police knew Keem could be a target of what's called "swatting". It's when someone makes a hoax call to 911 to draw a response from law enforcement, especially to draw the SWAT team.
"All of a sudden, they hear a knock on the door or they hear some yelling and screaming... there's a SWAT team or lots of law enforcement outside," explained Detective Lieutenant Pat McMaster with Orchard Park Police. His team recognized the call about Keem a month ago may have been "swatting", which is why they called him first.
In other instances, police are unaware and treat the situation much more seriously. Body camera videos have shown SWAT teams breaking into homes and cuffing innocent people, all due to these pranks.
"At that point, you're considering this incident basically a life or death type incident," said Chief Scott Patronik, who oversees the SWAT team for the Erie County Sheriff's Office.
This type of thing seems to have started in Hollywood, with fake calls to the homes of celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber. However, 2 On Your Side is aware of at least six "swatting" incidents in Western New York.
"It's often done by online gamers who've got a score to settle with somebody that may have beat them on an online game," explained Lt. McMcMaster. "It's dangerous. It draws a huge response from law enforcement quite often. It's expensive."
One "swatting" incident in Orchard Park cost the department thousands of dollars in overtime. And the hoax isn't just for the famous. Lt. McMaster said one victim was, "just a gamer, a teenage gamer."
Chief Patronik explained the difficulty in determining whether a SWAT call is real or not.
"You have seconds to make these determinations," Chief Patronik said. "How are we going to react to this? We don't have the luxury of even minutes."
Those split-second decisions can have deadly consequences. Late last year, a fake call prompted a SWAT response to a home in Wichita, Kansas. The homeowner walked onto his porch. When he made a motion toward his waistband, officers started shooting. The father of 2 was killed.
"Everyone realizes how deadly this game could be," Chief Patronik said.
In recent years, finding the criminals making these calls has been difficult, because of what's called spoofing. It's the act of tricking caller ID into showing a different number than the number that's actually calling.
"Basically it masks the number that they are calling from," Lt. McMaster said.
Police are getting better at tracking down the swatters.
"You're trying to stay ahead of the criminals?" 2 On Your Side's Michael Wooten asked. "Yea, it's cat and mouse, but luckily the technology, the training, companies now more aggressive with the logging, all of these are now in law enforcement's favor," Chief Patronik responded.
Each arrest sends a message that law enforcement will hunt you down "swatters". It's a reminder of what your mom or dad probably told you years ago: 'It's all fun and games, until somebody gets hurt.'