[UPDATED] Dota 2 player robbed while streaming gameplay
How many people can say that playing a game saved their life? Well, at least two gamers can say it saved theirs.
Nikki Elise, who goes by the handle of Sajedene, and her boyfriend SUNSfan, were robbed at gunpoint in their Tempe Florida apartment on Monday around 5 a.m. . At the time of the robbery, Elise was playing Dota 2 and streaming the match on Twitch. Her boyfriend can be seen going to check on a knock, and moments later Elise is seen moving quickly out of frame. Yelling can be heard on the video and then a man with a gun steps into view. The home invaders weren't aware that the webcam was currently on.
Video of the incident.
Because the match was broadcasting on Twitch, viewers alerted the players in the match to the situation that was occurring.
"The person that made the original call was in Europe, they called someone here in the United States. That person then called the Tempe Police Department," said Lieutenant Mike Pooley with the Tempe Police Department.
"I wasn't actually there, I have a friend that streams video games online through a webcam, and I had a bunch of people tell me that someone came in with a gun, and it looks like they were robbing them," said the 911 caller.
Tempe Police got to the apartment in time to catch one of the two suspects, 27 year-old Edgardo Martinez. The accomplice fled on foot and has not been found yet. Nikki Elise and her roommate were shook up but are doing okay.
UPDATED
The two individuals have released statements on their facebook page. Sajedene's page and SUNSfan's page.
“Hello friends,
For those that don’t know, we had a little incident today. While @Sajedene was live streaming, a couple robbers broke down our door and held us at gun point. This was around 4AM local time, and believe it or not, the loud crashing of the door wasn’t enough to prompt ANY neighbors to call the police.
But like i said, my girlfriend was streaming at the time and while they were holding us captive in our bedroom, a man with a gun showed up on her camera. As a result of this, our friends from around the world worked frantically to contact the police, which ended up saving us a few hours later.
I might go into more detail about the whole thing as time goes on, but as you might imagine we are pretty shaken up. All I know is that we were not the intended target.
I’d like to give a huge thanks to the community for stepping up to the plate when things got serious. We haven’t gotten a chance to read up on what transpired from your side of things, but it has become clear that @KuyaAce, @NeilFails, and @SpawnRulz literally saved our lives today. For that, I don’t think we can ever repay you. Also @Cyborgmatt and others helped in ways that helped lead to our rescue. If I’m missing anyone, I apologize, but like i said, we haven’t had a chance to catch up.
We’re in recovery mode right now. But we want to thank all the people who have shown their support. It is truly amazing what the internet is capable of, and the Dota 2 community in particular has been amazing. Who would have thought that streaming could save your life?
I was actually in the middle of editing the audio for our next guide at the time, so that might be delayed a bit (lol)
Thanks again friends. We’ll be in touch soon.
PS: The DC Kittens (Monkey and King B) are both fine, much to our relief.”
“Thank you for the kind outpouring of love and support for SUNSfan and me right now. It means the world that we (and both cats) are okay. It was a very scary situation to be in - especially knowing we were not the originally intended target, and how much worse it could have been if it were not for our friends from around the world who acted quickly to get the police involved. A big thank you especially to Ace, Neil, Spawn, CyborgMatt, and anyone else I may have regretfully missed who acted quickly - especially since our own neighbors DID NOT call anyone. We owe you our love and gratitude and life.
To get to the gist of it, I was streaming when we heard a loud noise in the other room and thought it was the cats. SUNSfan went to go check it out and I hear another noise and him yelling. Two men kicked our door in and pointed their guns at us looking for the drugs and guns of some other man who was their original intended target but they got us instead. We only had the latter and offered them everything else we had. They had us face down on the floor and took our belongings (bank cards, phones, jewelry, laptop, etc). They were going to take us to the bank and keep me hostage while SUNSfan took out money and from there god only knows. That was when the cops showed up (again thanks to you). The police have someone in custody, and have all the numbers to track and trace any other accomplices (with my rifle serial numbers probably being the strongest apart from the video feed you took - and not getting into any debates, were all legally purchased in CALIFORNIA not Arizona and honestly I don’t even know how long they would have stuck around or if they would keep us alive if they didn’t find anything worth taking and knowing we had some money in the bank and wanted to wait for the bank to open).
Sometimes, the risk of having such a public, out there life creates various speculations and theories and opinions, too much and sometimes too painful to address individually, but on the bright side, I don’t know where I would be if I wasn’t doing what I was doing to have you come to our aid when the people who lived much closer were not able to do the same. I can not thank you all enough.
At this time, we’re still in shock and can’t really go through each individual messages just yet, but we’ll get to them eventually and I promise to read and respond to as much as I can, if not all of it (as I usually try to do). All that matters is that we are okay.”
