A person residing in northern California was visited by police officers over the weekend after they received a call about possible gunshots and yelling. Instead of a dangerous situation, authorities discovered that someone was just playing video games too loudly with a window open.
Spotted by Kotaku, Action News Now reported on the Chico Police Department responding to someone notifying them about “threatening words” and “pop sounds” on November 22. The officers found out that a video game was the source of the noises. It’s unknown exactly what game the person was playing and whether they could have been shouting in the middle of an online match.
A possible option is Battlefield 6, since the FPS has seen the highest first-month sales in the US since 2022. Last month, EA announced that Battlefield 6 had sold 7 million copies. Of course, a competitor in the shooter space could also be behind the “pop sounds”–Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Or maybe it’s neither, and the person was playing Arc Raiders, Grand Theft Auto V, or something else entirely. Though we probably can rule out recent Nintendo releases like Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Kirby Air Riders.
The whole incident seems to be a misunderstanding. But that hasn’t always been the case with police and video games. Over the past decade and more, swatting has seen authorities called on popular streamers under false pretenses. In 2015, a 13-year-old Minecraft player faced serious legal consequences for allegedly three separate instances of swatting.