Police are on scene at Twitch headquarters after a possible shooting threat

[steven36]

• The San Francisco police on Wednesday were investigating a threat at the headquarters of the streaming platform Twitch.
• Employees at the company's headquarters were offered the option to work from home.
• "We were made aware of a threat against our San Francisco HQ on Tuesday, and have been working directly with law enforcement as they investigate," the company told Business Insider in a statement. "The safety and security of our employees is our top priority, and we are focused on ensuring this is resolved quickly and safely."
• Officer Adam Lobsinger of the San Francisco Police Department said the police were investigating the threat at the headquarters.
• "We don't have any suspect or know how credible the threat is at this time," Lobsinger said on Wednesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon, Lobsinger said there was no longer an "active threat."

 

Image: Twitch's San Francisco headquarters on Bush Street.

The San Francisco Police Department responded to the headquarters of the streaming company Twitch on Wednesday after a threat was made against the company.

 

Twitch didn't specify the nature of the threat, nor did the San Francisco Police Department, but multiple employees on private social-media accounts suggested that someone had threatened a shooting.

 

"We were made aware of a threat against our San Francisco HQ on Tuesday," a Twitch representative told Business Insider in a statement. "And have been working directly with law enforcement as they investigate. The safety and security of our employees is our top priority, and we are focused on ensuring this is resolved quickly and safely."

 

SFPD officer Adam Lobsinger said the threat originated on Twitter, but couldn't say more due to an ongoing investigation. By Wednesday afternoon, the San Francisco Police Department determined that there was no longer an "active threat" at Twitch HQ.

 

 

Employees at Twitch's San Francisco-based headquarters were offered the option to work from home on Wednesday as the police investigated.

 

"A threat is being made against a business located on the 300 block of Bush Street" where Twitch HQ is located, Officer Adam Lobsinger of the San Francisco Police Department told Business Insider on Wednesday afternoon. The police were said to be "on scene investigating" as of Wednesday morning.

 

"We don't have any suspect or know how credible the threat is at this time," he said.

 

Other major tech companies have received violent threats in recent years.

 

In April 2018, a woman entered YouTube's San Bruno, California, offices and shot three people before killing herself. Later that year, in December, a bomb threat shut down Facebook's Menlo Park, California, campus.

 

 

Twitch is based in San Francisco but is owned by the Seattle-based Amazon. The company is best known for its wildly popular streaming service of the same name, which primarily features people playing video games live on camera.

 

This week's threat to Twitch has come as gaming faces new criticism from politicians.

 

President Donald Trump on Monday argued that the internet and gaming spurred violence following two mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, in which a combined 31 people were killed.

 

"The perils of the internet and social media cannot be ignored and they will not be ignored," Trump said, going on to say that "includes the gruesome video games that are now commonplace."

 

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