YouTuber Kai Cenat arrested and charged with inciting a riot | US News

YouTuber and Twitch streamer Kai Cenat has been arrested and charged with inciting a riot after an attempt to give away Playstation 5s in a New York City park descended into chaos.

The NYPD arrested 65 people, 30 of whom were juveniles, during the Friday afternoon chaos in Manhattan’s Union Square.

On Wednesday, Cenat, 21, announced on his Twitch channel that he would host a ‘huge’ giveaway with video game consoles, PCs, keyboards, gaming chairs, headphones and other items.

As of Friday afternoon, the video had more than 2 million views.

New York City Police Chief Jeffrey Maddrey told reporters the giveaway had not been sanctioned by the city.

Cenat was scheduled to arrive at around 4pm, with thousands of attendees swarming the park.

But shortly before the event was due to begin things quickly descended into violence, with fights breaking out and attendees hurling objects, throwing punches, scaling structures and pushing over barriers.

Things escalated even further as people started throwing bottles, rocks and paint cans that had been taken from a construction site at the park, which prompted police to intervene.

The violence then spilled out into the nearby area, with video footage capturing people running through the streets, climbing on top of moving cars and pounding the side of a city bus.

One woman climbed up a traffic light and stood on a sign twerking above the crowds. 

Another group let off firecrackers in one section of Union Square Park as arrests were being made, which prompted panic and false rumors that a shooting had occurred.

At least one person was seen setting off a fire extinguisher, and a car was smashed by rioters jumping on the roof and kicking in the windows.

Cenat could be seen emerging from a SUV worming its way through the crowd and directing his followers to a nearby truck with a see-through back that contained boxes labelled PS5. 

Half of the crowd followed the truck, while the other half continued to follow the social media star. When the car got to 17th street, it picked up speed and drove away from the scene.

‘Officers were attacked, we were crushed,’ Maddrey said, adding that he had been hit with ‘multiple objects’ during the incident.

‘I personally observed young people having panic attacks, anxiety attacks,’ he said. ‘People were suffering out here.’

Three officers were injured, he added. A sergeant also suffered a broken hand and four people were taken to hospital in ambulances.

One 16-year-old, who identified himself as Rodrigo, told NBC he was a fan of Cenat and came hoping to win money or perhaps a console.

‘And then a big storm of people started running and there were cops everywhere,’ he said.

‘One cluster of people would let out a yell and start cheering, then another group would do the same, people were swarming over to the group that yelled the loudest just to try and see this influencer. People had little kids with them,’ another witness told MailOnline.

Cenat and his friends reacted to the wild scene on a live stream that seemed to show them reveling in the crowd.

‘Look at this!’ Cenat said, as he showed a picture of the crowd to the camera. 

‘They standing like in f*****g unity, bro.’

He added: ‘Everybody for themselves, it’s a war out there man.’ 

A video posted online showed about a dozen people jumping on top of Cenat’s car, before one fell off. 

The streamer has since been remanded into police custody and has been charged with multiple criminal offences, including at least two counts of inciting a riot and unlawful assembly.

Cenat is known for his outrageous antics, which have gotten him in some trouble on Twitch.

He has been temporarily banned from the platform on five different occasions.

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