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On Thursday, while DJ Akademiks was in the middle of a livestream, he found himself in a difficult situation when someone reportedly called a SWAT team to his residence. Akademiks later took to his Instagram Stories and uploaded a Ring camera footage where an officer could be heard asking him to keep his hands up.
While the podcaster was handcuffed, nobody was shot there. Akademiks also captioned that story by writing:
"Y'all trolls swatting ain't cool. Had my whole police department pointing 15 ARs at me today. Just watch the stream and have fun. Don't try to get me clapped! Salute to my police dept tho. Absolute professionals."
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In the next few stories, DJ Akademiks went about condemning the behavior and suggested to not call SWAT teams that way. He revealed that the authorities received a call from someone who claimed to be his sister.
Akademiks kept highlighting the fact that he was a Black man, while he was trying to explain why swatting was absolutely unacceptable. He said in one of his stories that unlike many streamers, he was a Black man living in a white neighborhood. According to DJ Akademiks, in these cases, the authorities could already assume that he had done something wrong.
He further stated that he could have had family members at his place who would not understand the situation, making it quite risky. According to Cambridge Dictionary, swatting is "the action of making a false report of a serious emergency so that a SWAT team will go to a person's home."
As per reports by HotNewHipHop, several streamers like iShowSpeed and Adin Ross had fallen prey to swatting. The outlet further added that popular content creators are often encouraged to make the local authorities aware of possibilities of swatting.
DJ Akademiks has become one of the many popular figures who became victim to swatting
As aforementioned, DJ Akademiks was not the only one to become a victim to swatting. Over years, several celebrities and well-known personalities have allegedly been swatted at some point of time. In January 2013, someone made a false report of domestic abuse at Chris Brown's residence, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The caller reportedly told the cops that Brown's mother could possibly be shot in some situation. This prompted a police response. However, Chris was not at home at the time, and it was just his staff and parents present. Then in 2023, Nicki Minaj became a part of the list.
Nicki even took to X and revealed the identity of the apparent swatter as Stephanie Bell. She had faced several similar incidents that year. Again in 2013, LAPD received reports of a shooting at Rihanna's house, only to later realize that it was a false report.
Law enforcement sources confirm to TMZ that Stephanie Bell is facing two charges of deliberately reporting a false emergency.
Other celebrities who apparently had been swatted were Diddy, Lil Wayne, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, and streamers like Adin Ross and iShowSpeed.
Swatting has been considered as to be an act that can lead to fatal outcomes. According to NBC News, by 2019, about 1,000 swatting incidents were getting reported across the United States every year.
