'Gamer cop': Officer uses gaming app to get missing teen to return home
A New York police officer, who has grown up playing video games, is being credited with saving the life of a teen by using an online gaming app.
Officer Gary Strebel's efforts have earned him the nickname "gamer cop."
Strebel's social media and gaming skills kicked in recently following a missing child report, .
"We looked around to see if there was anything that might help us, and I noticed his computer open with an app I recognize,” said Strebel, who has been with NYPD for three years.
The gaming app Strebel found was Discord, which lets users communicate during game play.
"I saw the app, and I realized that if he has this on his phone as well, then there’s a chance I can get through to him this way,” Strebel said.
As luck would have it, the teen had the app on his phone and began communicating with Strebel.
But Strebel admitted that, for a period of time, he was unsure if the teen would return home.
“I don’t know exactly if he’s gonna come home or not, so it’s kind of a little grace period, where you don’t know what’s going to happen and you’re kind of just hoping,” he said. "I asked him if he would come home, told him I was at his apartment with his parents, and we’re just worried about him. I let him know that I’m just a normal guy. I play games, just like him."
About an hour after Strebel messaged the teen, he returned home.
"It’s always great when you get these kind of jobs, especially when they involve a child, and they do come home. I was able to do it with something we’re not exactly trained on,” Strebel said. “I was very happy he came home. I was ecstatic that it actually worked and that he believed me to come home.”
In congratulating Strebel, his precinct tweeted, "Who said being a millennial was a bad thing? Great work, Officer Strebel, putting your many years of gaming 'research' to work & getting this young #gamer home safe!"