A crowd of several thousand people — lured by the promise of free PlayStation 5 giveaways by a popular Twitch streamer — descended on Union Square in New York City on Friday afternoon, and became violent and uncontrollable, according to police.
The Twitch influencer, Kai Cenat, along with an streamer known as Fanum had encouraged their followers to come to Union Square at 4 p.m. in a social media post about giving away multiple Sony PlayStation 5s.
By 3 p.m., Cenat’s post went viral the park was overrun with people well before Cenat was scheduled to arrive, NYPD officials said at a news conference Friday. The crowd began attacking police and other members of the public — throwing rocks, bottle and other debris and setting off fireworks, according to police. Multiple arrests were made among those gathered. Police said they removed Cenat from the area for his own safety after the crowd grew violent and that he remained in custody Friday evening.
“People were suffering out here — it was uncontrolled — and a lot of young people got hurt,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeff Maddrey said at the news conference. “This speaks to the power of social media and the danger of social media.”
During the unrest, New York subway trains bypassed the Uinon Square Station stop.
Cenat is the most-subscribed streamer on Twitch, with more than 1000,000 subscribers according to TwitchTracker.