Viewer Prank: Police Raid Justin.tv

http://www.justin.tv/widgets/embedded_archive.swf

When a bunch of geeks live their life online, it’s tempting to do things to disrupt those lives and watch the fun from the comfort of your computer. So it’s no surprise that some fairly funny pranks have already been played on four day old Justin.tv.

The best so far? Wednesday at 1:40 AM someone spoofed the caller id of the Justin.tv official cell phone number (which is listed on the Justin.tv site), called the San Francisco police department and reported a stabbing in the North Beach apartment.

See the embedded video above: Police arrived soon thereafter, guns drawn, and entered through the front door to find a bunch of (surprised and nervous) geeks laying around with laptops and web cams. All of this was shown live to hundreds of amused viewers.

The next day, someone reported a fire at the apartment. Six big red fire trucks showed up to deal with the situation. Sadly, this occured off camera.

The police and fire departments are not amused, of course. Future emergency calls from that phone number will require a confirmation call before emergency services will be dispatched.

Luckily, San Francisco’s emergency services won’t be wasting any more time dealing with these pranks.