False Statements, Lies Pressure Alterna Into Releasing Police Reports on 2019 Swatting

In February of 2019, Alterna Comics publisher Peter Simeti was on a live stream broadcast from his apartment, when a knock at the door drew him away from his microphone. The stream was left running, and viewers could clearly hear the police enter the apartment and question Simeti, in response to a 911 call about a violent domestic disturbance.

The violence did not happen. The call was faked -- what is termed a "SWATting" in which the perpetrator calls the police pretending to be in distress or emotional turmoil, specifically the kind that would urge police to enter with weapons drawn. The obvious intent is that the person targeted would thus be harmed by the police.

Because the live stream had witnesses of the events, nobody questioned that it happened. But a year later, there was a sudden renewed interest in the case when YouTuber TheTenCentStory -- formerly a founding ComicsGate streamer known as Capn Cummings -- began to question the veracity of the incident. "Question" is probably a charitable way of putting it: in truth Cummings directly called Simeti a liar in a sequence of tweets, following online contact with Simeti which led to the police asking Cummings to cease communications with the publisher.

On both May 8th and May 10th, Cummings put into writing his accusations that Simeti was faking the incident, stating as a point of fact that Simeti was lying because Cummings' investigations -- viewing the police department Facebook page -- did not show any results about the visit to Simeti's apartment.

Ten days later, Cummings again replied to Simeti on Twitter, this time stating, as fact, that the police visit did not occur.

When Cummings' attack tweets drew the attention of YouTubers like ThatUmbrellaGuy, he continued steadfastly with the message that Simeti was prevaricating, expecting a "full retraction" from the YouTuber.

Cummings was a little cagier in his reponse to this reporter, stating that the events, as described, "did not happen." In this regard, he may have an out, as Simeti's own words say the guns were pointed at his chest, not at his head as Cummings writes here.

On May 29, 2020, the online harrassment came to a head, when Peter Simeti and Alterna Comics released a video on YouTube that included the relevant parts of the aforementioned live stream (which had been taken offline during the investigation). In that video, viewers can clearly hear the knocking the conversation with the two police officers, and Simeti's statements afterward. Furthermore, the video concludes with images of the police reports which, per Cummings, did not exist.

We don't think Cummings is going to get that full retraction he was expecting. It would be nice, however, to get one from him.

The video from Alterna Comics follows.