BOCA RATON — The Town Center Mall was evacuated Saturday afternoon after a visit to the mall by a prominent video game streamer prompted an apparent “swatting” attempt targeting the streamer.
Cody “Clix” Conrod, a popular streamer of the video game Fortnite, was shopping at the mall Saturday when he said a follower called in a claim that he was involved in a shooting at the mall.
“We can’t get out of the mall because one of you guys swatted the mall and said there’s a shooting going on in here next to my (expletive) car,” Conrod said in a livestream, a portion of which was posted online. “All the (expletive) stores are locked down.”
Police spokeswoman Jessica Desir told The Palm Beach Post about 7 p.m. that officers had determined the threat was “a swatting call” — meaning a prank call intended to draw a large emergency response — and that they had searched and cleared the car in question.
“This is a swatting call; we haven’t found anything suspicious,” she said. “The vehicle that was in question has been cleared.”
She said police and mall supervisors were still doing a walk-through of the shopping center. The mall remained closed as of 7:30 p.m., but shoppers could retrieve their cars from the parking lot. Desir later said the mall would not be reopening Saturday night.
Around 5 p.m., police had asked mall patrons to leave as they investigated the incident. A caller made a threat from the north parking lot of the mall on Glades Road west of the city center, they said at the time.
Conrod posted on X to express his dismay at what happened.
“Wow man, what a (expletive) disgusting world we live in,” he wrote, adding that he was “done” with livestreams of his real life.
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Boca Raton police evacuate mall after Fortnite streamer Clix ‘swatted’
