Former NRG VALORANT starter and current full-time streamer Sam “s0m” Oh was the victim of an early morning swatting attack on Jan. 4 as police raided his house in response to a false report with his family asleep inside.
At around 6am CT, s0m abruptly left his stream setup, and an armed police officer entered shortly after brandishing a shotgun with a flashlight attachment as they cleared the room. Soon after, s0m appeared on stream and was understandably very upset.
“I don’t know who did this but you’re actually fucked,” s0m said before ending his stream. “Everyone is safe, but that is so fucked. I always knew that was a problem but I didn’t think it would happen to me. Everyone’s fine [but] I’m done, I’m not streaming.” S0m then shut off the stream, and the VOD is no longer available on his channel.
After ending the stream, s0m posted on Twitter about the incident, and continued venting his frustrations toward whoever was responsible. “Swatted at 6:30AM while my whole family is sleeping, actually ridiculous,” s0m said. “To whoever did this you are genuinely a horrible person, swatting is not a joke and puts peoples lives at risk.” S0m also confirmed that he would be back on later for a “normal stream.”
Following his departure from the NRG starting roster after the 2023 season, s0m and teammate Pujan “FNS” Mehta shifted to full-time streaming while waiting on potential offers from other teams.
Swatting is an ugly practice in which someone will make a phony call to police or emergency services, leading to an armed SWAT team arriving at the residence of the person streaming. Numerous prolific streamers including Kai Cenat, IShowSpeed, Ludwig, Adin Ross, ImperialHal, Bugha, xQc, and several others have had one or multiple instances of being swatted. Swatting can even sometimes get the victims killed, leading to the perpetrators receiving several years of extended jail time.
Twitch provides resources to its streamers for combatting both swatting and doxxing, advising them to keep personal details and addresses private, and in some cases to reach out to law enforcement and inform them of their risk of being swatted.
