Last night, a mugger allegedly assaulted and robbed blogger Rickey Yaneza while he was streaming Pokemon GO in Central Park. Consequently, live footage of the attack streamed on his Twitch channel, which is currently suspended.
Pokemon Indigo League
At 12:30AM local time, Yaneza, 43, was allegedly attacked while running to catch a Snorlax that spawned in Grand Army Plaza, a noted Pokemon hotspot located at the park’s southeast entrance. In video captured from the stream, Yaneza attempts to catch a Seaking when an unidentified assailant throws him to the ground. The assailant punches Yaneza, takes the three visible phones comprising his livestream setup and runs north.
I got mugged playing Pokémon GO in Central Park. Still talking to police and will go to hospital soon. My jaw is a mess. Thanks all.
— rickeybot (@rickeybot) September 19, 2016
My @twitch account busy got suspended, literally insult to injury #twitch
— rickeybot (@rickeybot) September 19, 2016
“He literally just sucker punched me,” Yaneza said over the phone. “My right jaw is swollen. He clotheslined me with his fist. I hit the ground. I have a bump on my head and a scratch on my elbow.”
Yaneza says he went to the hospital after the incident after two bystanders helped him contact the police. A representative for the New York Police Department confirmed the incident’s occurrence to Kotaku.
On Yaneza’s Twitch stream, viewers in his chat watched the whole thing in surprise and disbelief. Curiously, the assailant wore headgear resembling either a head-mounted camera or a headlight. Yaneza said he suspects that the attacker wore headgear so “he would look like he’s part of the geeks there. He was probably stalking the area knowing people were there playing Pokemon.”
The night of the assault was Yaneza’s ninth day streaming ever. He said that, once he recovers and his Twitch channel is restored, he will begin streaming again.
After footage of the attack went viral on Reddit, Yaneza said he would licence it, so he would receive money upon the video’s publication.
“I might as well get something out of this,” he told me.
Comments
11 responses to “Pokemon GO Streamer Mugged Live On Twitch”
Twitch are getting seriously retarded with these bans.
Huh?
Probably banned the channel so the footage can get scrubbed and there’s no lawsuit against them for not helping in a police investigation
Actually, I think people are getting seriously retarded about streaming themselves playing games on the internet. Not to mention the people who watch..
I think that is a really dumb statement for someone to make who is on a gaming site.
Actually, I think people are getting seriously retarded about writing about games. Not to mention the people who read about them….
See the hypocrisy?
kind of silly of him though walking around central park, a known mugging hotspot that time of night
Come on, that’s borderline victim blaming.
no that IS victim blaming.
You can call it what you like, but sometimes it’s just common sense. Central Park has a reputation and history of muggings (and worse), especially at night – they even put in a curfew on it to stop people going there too late at night (this would of been close to curfew i think it starts about midnight or 1am). Only speaking for myself I’m damn sure i wouldn’t go in there alone at that time of night. It’s terrible that this sort of thing happens, but from personal experience (I’ve been mugged before) it pays to look at these sorts of risk factors. again – it’s only an opinion coming from personal experience and no offense is intended.
Sometimes victims need to be blamed. I’d love it if we lived in a fantasy world were everything is as it should be and people don’t get randomly mugged/attacked, but we do. As such, you have to take pro-active steps towards ensuring your own personal safety.
Nearly all of these incidencts that have occured realting to pokemon go have occured late at night.
Why are these people playing so late at night? Play it during the day.