UFC bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley appears to be the latest in a long string of streamers victimized by swatting. O'Malley published a video showing police storming his house while he was playing video games and broadcasting them to his online audience.
O'Malley posted a home surveillance video of a police force approaching his home and his live reaction via webcam. Swatting is a growing trend in which perpetrators make hoax phone calls to report serious crimes to emergency services. The goal is to fool emergency services into sending a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team to the victim's home in response to the faux emergency.
"I've heard about, like Adin [Ross] and the big streamers getting swatted," O'Malley said on the "Timbo Sugarshow" podcast with his coach Tim Welch. "People find out where they're at and they call the cops, say something happened that obviously didn't happen, and then they're f---ing getting swatted.
"I peek out my head out the window to see if maybe it's something else, but then they're on the intercom and I see a bunch of cops. They're like, 'Walk out with your hands up.' So I f---in' walk out, hands up. I was like, 'I'm just going to listen. I could get shot.' I was like, 'OK, if I just listen to them, I'll be all right.' But you never know: Someone sneezes, pulls the trigger -- I've got f---in' shotguns pointed at me, AR-[15]s from like four different cops pointed at me. I was like, 'I'm just going to listen and walk back."
O'Malley said he continued to comply with police and was put in the back of a police car for more than half an hour. O'Malley was later informed the caller claimed O'Malley killed his parents and that there was an active shooter in his home.
"I was sitting in the back of that cop car in handcuffs and I was like, 'Dude, that's crazy: I had freedom five minutes ago. Now I have none. Zero.' … They said I killed my parents or something like that, and they thought there was an active shooter inside."
O'Malley said the first responders did not recognize him; however, the situation de-escalated after additional officers identified O'Malley as a UFC fighter. O'Malley defeated Aljamain Sterling to become UFC bantamweight champion in August 2023 and made a successful title defense against Marlon Vera in March 2024.
