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By Tahar Rajab
News and Features Journalist
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Infowars host Owen Shroyer has said he was the victim of a swatting incident in which heavily armed police raided his home after receiving a false report of a shooting.
Shroyer, a conservative commentator, blamed the Democratic Party and its supporters for orchestrating the ordeal, calling it part of a broader pattern of political intimidation.
In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday, Shroyer recounted the incident, saying about a dozen officers had arrived at his home with weapons drawn. He was handcuffed and forced to crawl on the ground while officers searched his residence.
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"A couple of the police officers knew who I was. They still had to do their job," Shroyer said. "The fake police report that was filed was that I'd shot someone in my house. That's obviously not true. I'm here alone. I live alone."
Newsweek has contacted the Austin Police Department for comment.
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Shroyer said his experience was not an isolated case, alleging that numerous conservatives had been targeted in similar swatting incidents. He accused Democratic operatives, left-wing activists and major donors of financing these attacks.
"It's been dozens of people that have been swatted. What is going on? We know what's going on," he said. "The Democrat Party and all of their little street thugs funded by ActBlue, the stolen money from USAID, George Soros—all these different groups are behind it. They're behind the terror attacks against Elon Musk."
Shroyer expressed concern over the dangerous nature of swatting, warning that the practice could lead to fatalities.
Addressing Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI, he said: "What is it going to take? Is somebody going to have to die before you actually do something? We're dealing with a criminal organization. We're dealing with a terrorist organization. It's called the Democrat Party." He added, "Someone is going to die when one of these events goes wrong."
The conservative host said he had security footage of the incident but was hesitant to release it because of privacy concerns for his neighbors. However, he suggested that he might eventually publish some of the videos to expose what had happened.
"I'll come out with some of the videos. I've got three different cameras that have captured this on video," he said.
Shroyer called on law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, to investigate what he called "Democrat terrorism," drawing comparisons to legal battles faced by President Donald Trump and other conservative figures.
In 2023, Shroyer was sentenced to 60 days in prison for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot. Shroyer, who did not enter the Capitol but was accused of encouraging the crowd with inflammatory rhetoric, had previously signed a deferred prosecution agreement after a 2019 incident, pledging not to engage in disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Prosecutors said he had violated that agreement and accused him of spreading election misinformation and inciting violence in the weeks leading up to January 6. They cited an Infowars video featuring Shroyer and Alex Jones, which included a graphic promoting a march on the Capitol.
In Wednesday's video, Shroyer criticized the justice system, saying that despite receiving death threats, he had been unable to restore his Second Amendment rights after a misdemeanor trespassing conviction.
"They took my Second Amendment away for my misdemeanor trespassing charge. They took my guns," he said. "I was getting death threats to my house and to my phone, and we submitted that evidence to a federal court to reinstate my right to self-defense, and they denied me."
Shroyer said he had had enough and vowed to speak out more forcefully moving forward.
"I was not going to report on any of this, but I'm done," he said. "I'm on the warpath."
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