UFC champion Sean O’Malley gets swatted while quietly streaming at home: ‘I got shotguns pointed at me’
Sean O’Malley was held at gunpoint as SWAT team members raided his house.
During the most recent episode of his TimboSugarShow podcast with longtime coach Tim Welch, the reigning UFC bantamweight champion revealed that he was recently swatted — a term used for when someone calls the police claiming an individual is either violent, armed or in the process of committing a crime.
The incident occurred while O’Malley was sitting quietly at home streaming.
“Went home, I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna stream today,’” O’Malley said. “Streaming, about an hour and a half in I see a f*ckin cop fly down my road. I feel like instantly I kinda knew because I’ve heard about Adin [Ross] and the big streamers getting swatted. 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*cking getting swatted.”
“So, 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 and they’re like, ‘Walk out with your hands up.’ So I f*ckin’ walk out, hands up. I was like, ‘I’m just gonna listen. I could get shot.’” I was like, ‘Okay if I just listen to them, I’ll be alright.’ But you never know, someone sneezes, pulls the trigger. I got f*ckin shotguns pointed at me. ARs from like four different cops pointed at me. I was like I’m just gonna listen and walk back.”
Sean O’Malley uses his time in the back of a police car to meditate
Because he exited his home unarmed and was cooperative, the responding offers did not force him to get on the ground. Instead, they cuffed him and tossed him in the back of a police vehicle where he used the time to meditate and marvel at the crazy situation he had suddenly found himself in.
“No. They didn’t have me get on the ground. I just turned around, walked backward with my hands up, put me in handcuffs. Put me in the cop car. I just used it as a meditation because moments like those bring you into the present moment so much. 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 k*lled my parents or something like that, and they thought there was an active shooter inside. …Someone called the cops and said there’s an active shooter, and two dead people in the house or something.”
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for a second set of officers to arrive on the scene and immediately recognized who Sean O’Malley was, bringing an end to the incident roughly an hour removed from when everything initially went down.
