Twitch influencer and streamer Kai Cenat was apprehended by the New York Police Department after a giveaway at Union Square Park attracted thousands of young people, causing chaos across lower Manhattan.
Cenat announced an impromptu meetup and giveaway early Friday, pledging to hand out copies of video games and Playstation 5 consoles.
The event attracted over a thousand young fans and forced police to shut down surrounding streets and re-route nearby subway lines. One person was even seen spraying a fire extinguisher into the crowd.
“Individuals in the park began to commit acts of violence towards the police and the public,” NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey said at a press conference late Friday.
Police made dozens of arrests and multiple people, including police officers, were injured, Maddrey added.
“I personally observed young people walking out with their heads, bleeding from their heads, bleeding from on their faces. I personally observed young people having panic attacks, anxiety attacks, asthma attacks,” he continued. “People were suffering out here. It was a lot of people, it was uncontrolled, it took us awhile to get it under control, and a lot of young people got hurt.”
Video showed Cenat being led into a NYPD vehicle just after 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon. Police arrived at the Union Square event just after 2 p.m., a NYPD spokesperson said.
NYPD confirmed that some arrests were made at the event, but could not confirm the number of arrests or if Cenat was among those apprehended.
The influencer went live while in the center of the crowd. News helicopter footage later showed people hanging off the side of his vehicle when he drove away.
While in the vehicle, he went live again and asked his fans to go home.
Fans also broke into a neighboring construction site and stole objects like paint cans, bottles and rocks and threw them at each other and police, Maddrey said. The gathering was declared an unlawful assembly.
The department is considering charging Cenat with inciting a riot, the chief said.
“We have encountered things like this before, but never to this level of dangerousness where young people would not listen to our commands, he said. “They were fighting each other, they were hurting each other, they were turning our attacks on us. We had to defend ourselves and we had to make arrests.”
“This speaks to the power of social media and to the danger of social media,” Maddrey continued. “We’re not against people having a good time, we’re not against young people gathering. But it can’t be to this level where it’s dangerous. A lot of people got hurt today.”
The streamer currently has about 100,000 subscribers on Twitch, making him the most successful streamer in platform history. He began his online career in 2018, posting comedy videos in and around New York City.
Cenat’s streams typically react to popular online content, host interviews and conversations with celebrities and show him playing video games.
He won the Streamer of the Year award at the Streamy Awards — the livestream community’s version of the Grammys — in 2022.