What It’s Like To Be Swatted

Erin Derham heard the knocking first.

Another storm was raging over North Carolina, with heavy rain and wind gusts over 40 MPH bringing more damage to an area still suffering from a hurricane last year. The pounding at her door was so loud and so desperate that she thought a tree must have fallen on the house, and someone was coming to check on her family.

She rushed to the door in her pajamas, as her three kids slept upstairs and her husband, social media influencer Matt Van Swol, frantically dressed. When Derham answered the door, she found a police officer with his gun drawn. He asked her if someone inside the home had been shot.

She immediately knew what was going on. Her family was being swatted.

Swatting is a pernicious practice wherein someone calls the police to falsely report a serious crime at an innocent individual’s home, bringing police and SWAT teams to the home. Police arrive to a residence with urgency to stop a serious crime that isn’t happening, a waste of resources that could potentially cause unnecessary confrontation and even death.

When Derham told the officer what was happening, she says he first seemed to believe that she was admitting to perpetrating the hoax herself. She explained to him that someone else had called in the crime, and the officer radioed in to tell the other units en route to stop. Apparently, just about every law enforcement officer in Buncombe County was on their way to the Van Swol household, responding to a call so horrific it necessitated a massive police presence.

That call, according to a police transcript provided to The Daily Wire, came from a person pretending to be Van Swol saying that three masked intruders — two white and one black — broke into his home, shot his wife, and then shot him in the back and leg. The caller claimed that he was hiding in the basement and could still hear the intruders rummaging through the house while his son was asleep upstairs.

“They’re going to kill me,” the caller said, begging for police assistance.

The desperation in the caller’s voice and the wild story they strung together could only mean one thing, Van Swol told The Daily Wire: “These people wanted to kill me.”

His family is still living on edge.

“My daughter woke up while the police officers were in the house,” he said. “She’s 13. It’s hard to explain to a kid that when a bunch of cops show up to your house with guns drawn that you’re not the bad guy, somebody else is.”

Van Swol said that he believes the situation probably would have been worse if he had answered the door rather than his wife.

“Had I gone to the door, seen a man with a gun with a flashlight with his headlights pointed through the window of my door, I would probably try to kill that person,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think he would have survived the encounter. But because the caller claimed a woman had been shot and that male perpetrators were still in the house, a woman answering the door with no injuries immediately defused the situation.

Thankfully for the Van Swol family, they live in a small town where everyone knows everyone, and neighbors have come by to make sure they were okay, while the police have been transparent and helpful.

Van Swol posted about the encounter on X, including door-camera footage of the initial confrontation. He also called the police officer who went to the door alone a “hero,” because, from the officer’s perspective, he was going into a dangerous situation without backup to try and save lives.

Van Swol said he was told by law enforcement that local media outlets were calling and showing up at the police department to ask whether the swatting event was real, but after police confirmed it was, no articles were written.

“They were apparently blowing up the police department to get more information on it,” Van Swol told The Daily Wire. “And you would think one would write a story about it if they were so interested, but they never wrote a story about it and it’s big news.”

Since the swatting attempt, hoaxsters have ordered numerous pizzas to the Van Swol household late at night. The constant doorbell ringing became so regular that the family now posts a sign on the door warning delivery people that they did not order anything and that the orders are a hoax.

Van Swol is one of many conservative influencers to be swatted recently. As analyst DataRepublican pointed out on X, nearly all of those who have been swatted since March 10 were popular X accounts who are regularly interacted with by Elon Musk, with many, Van Swol excluded, having ties to InfoWars or War Room.

???? THREAD: Unmasking Swatting Patterns ????

Three additional MAGA X influencers got swatted today: @Beard_Vet , @matt_vanswol , @GrageDustin .

I used Grok to compile the following list of swatting victims and then ran it through both Grok and OpenAI’s deep research tools to find… https://t.co/mpuzUH2npt

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) March 17, 2025

Many of the accounts who were victims of swatting also expressed support for Israel or spoke out against Hamas and were regularly amplified by Utah Senator Mike Lee’s personal account. The accounts also have follower counts in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions.

Van Swol rose to prominence following Hurricane Helene, which struck western North Carolina in September 2024 and became the deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005. After the storm hit, Van Swol noticed that the government and media outlets quickly moved on from reporting on the destruction, and began amplifying the concerns of the people who lost their homes and businesses in the storm. Before Hurricane Helene, Van Swol says he had around 5,000 followers, but as of publication he has more than 200,000.

He at times posts conservative messages to explain why he left the Democratic Party after seeing how the media and government treated western North Carolina, but he doesn’t understand why he is now a target of swatting.

“What could I have possibly said that would have angered someone so badly that they would be on the phone with the police, making up some crazy story to try to get the police to break into the house with a gun in the middle of the night?”

This is not the first wave of swatting. The FBI warned of the dangers of swatting back in 2008, calling the attempts “dangerous to first responders and to the victims.” At the time, the FBI referred to a case from 2007 where a married California couple was swatted by a 19-year-old Washington State man who called the police claiming to be the husband and said he had just murdered someone. No one was injured during that incident, and the caller was apprehended.

“Between 2002 and 2006, the five swatters called 9-1-1 lines in more than 60 cities nationwide, impacting more than 100 victims, causing a disruption of services for telecommunications providers and emergency responders, and resulting in up to $250,000 in losses,” the FBI reported in 2008.

In 2012, multiple conservative bloggers — including Erick Erickson of Redstate — were the victims of swatting. Then-Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, was also a victim.

But conservatives aren’t the only swatting victims. In 2013, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and numerous celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher and Tom Cruise, had their homes swatted. That same year, Mir Islam was convicted of doxing and swatting more than 50 public figures. Multiple video game streamers have also been victims.

A swatting incident in Oklahoma in 2015 left Sentinel Police Chief Louis Ross injured after he was shot by a homeowner who had been swatted. The homeowner, Dallas Horton, had no idea Ross was an officer and thought a man with a gun was breaking into his home. Ross was shot multiple times but survived.

In 2017, A Wichita police officer shot and killed Andrew Finch during a swatting attempt after two “Call of Duty” gamers who played with him made the fake call. Tyler Raj Barris was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the crime. Another gamer was sentenced to 15 months in prison for conspiracy.

In 2020, 60-year-old Mark Herring of Bethpage, Tennessee, died of a heart attack after he was swatted by a man who wanted his X handle. Shane Sonderman was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime.

So far, no one has been arrested for the recent string of swattings targeting conservative influencers, and according to Van Swol, his local police currently have no leads. This week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vowed to find the people behind the attacks.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we will not sit idly by as conservative new media and their families are being targeted by false swatting,” Noem wrote on X. “[DHS] has the ability to trace phone numbers and track location information. We will use it to hunt these cowards down.”

Under President Trump’s leadership, we will not sit idly by as conservative new media and their families are being targeted by false swatting. @DHSgov has the ability to trace phone numbers and track location information. We will use it to hunt these cowards down.

This is an…

— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) March 19, 2025

FBI Director Kash Patel also released a statement regarding the attacks.

“I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures,” Patel said on X. “The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable.”

“This isn’t about politics—weaponizing law enforcement against ANY American is not only morally reprehensible but also endangers lives, including those of our officers,” Patel added. “That will not be tolerated. We are fully committed to working with local law enforcement to crack down on these crimes.”

I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures. The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable.

This isn’t about politics—weaponizing law enforcement…

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) March 14, 2025

Van Swol, in addition to wanting the perpetrators brought to justice, said he wants the country to calm down.

“I’d love to see them found and I would love to see the temperature around Elon and OGE and Trump drop because we cannot live in a country where someone is swatted in the middle of the night for posting their benign political views on the internet.”