Some wild and crazy times we all live in, I suppose. Be careful when talking about your videos games, kids.
Police were reportedly sent to a family home in 2019 as part of the UK government’s Prevent strategy, an anti-extremism scheme, after their four-year-old son was overheard talking about Fortnite in the playground after school.
The Guardian reports that the West-Midlands boy was referred to the scheme after talking about how his father had “guns and bombs in his shed.” But according to transcripts of an interview with an after-school club worker, the kid had simply been watching his older cousin playing the game over at his father’s house the night before—his excitable recollection taken out-of-context in reports.
Subsequently, the family received a late-night home visit from the police. In an anonymous interview, the mother told The Guardian that it was just one (rather “uneasy” looking) officer, but feared what could’ve happened if armed police showed up, or had social services become involved. While that one officer noted that he was simply following the Prevent playbook, the mother is confident that no referral would’ve been made at all had the boy been white.
