PixelNation Gets

Photo by Bridgette Morris 

\West Virginia State Police, Mercer County Police, and Princeton City Police responded to a call about a hostage situation at the PixelNation Retro Game Store on Mercer Street in Princeton on Monday, March 30 around 6:30 p.m. 

The called turned out to be fake after the S.W.A.T. team cleared the building, finding no perpetrator in the vicinity. No injuries took place during the situation. Kevin Morris, owner of the retro game store, explained that his business was subjected to a fairly new type of prank called “swatting” in the press release the store sent out on Tuesday. 

The prankster placed a call to the Princeton City Police Department saying that there was a hostage situation taking place at PixelNation and demanded ransom. He then called the store impersonating a police officer and told the employees to lock the door and move to the back of the store. The store accountant, Loren Morris, thought the call to be a prank and did not comply with the caller’s demands. The S.W.A.T. team made their way into the store while Morris was in the process of calling the police to report the call. She recalled, “When the police came I thought, ‘Oh, that phone call was real.’”  

Only four employees were present at the time of the swatting. The police were wearing bullet proof vests, some wore helmets, and all were carrying assault rifles. The store’s owner Kevin watched the event unfold from his home via the store’s online UStream video feed. 

He spoke of how controlled the situation was, saying, “When I was in the army I went through the room clearing training, and, when the S.W.A.T. team came in, they were a lot nicer than what we were trained to do. They didn’t touch nobody when they came in. They didn’t throw them on the ground or nothing. They came in, they cleared room, cleared room, and then they reconfigured out in the front and called it.”

He said his wife Loren’s experience was a little different since she was present during the situation, and that she was fairly shaken up – not because of the police, but because she believed that she misinterpreted the call and that there was actually someone else in the building. Kevin says, for him, it was like watching a video game.

He believes his store was targeted because of their 24/7 UStream video feed which is currently offline. 

Just one day before the “swatting” at PixelNation occurred, another one had taken place at a retro video game store in Clifton, New Jersey called Digital Press Video Games. They have an UStream as well and experienced almost the same series of events. According to an article titled “New Jersey Game Store Swatting Takes an Uglier Turn” Mike Fahey of Kotoku, the perpetrator impersonated a fire department official, the store complied with his demands, and everyone in the store was handcuffed and taken to the business next door. There were approximately 40 people in the store at the time, and there were no physical injuries to report.

When asked how she thought the hoax affected PixelNation, Loren said, “The most disheartening thing for sure [is] looking on Facebook and seeing some of the comments [like], ‘Oh, just another reason not to go downtown.’ Because we are working so hard to get the downtown going and make it a better place, and it is. We are making strides, and it kind of feels like a setback.” She continued to say that she felt that those who were saying that were already in that mindset, and that what happening to the store had nothing to do with the downtown and it could have happened to them anywhere.

The Princeton City Police Department were unable to be reached for comment.

Currently, PixelNation Retro Game Store is operating on normal business hours, and there is no further information to report at this time.