“Yooo, anybody catch Stanhope getting arrested?” asked user ChicanoGoodfella on the Doug Stanhope subreddit last night. The short answer: Yes, a lot of people caught it. The longer reaction: Something definitely happened. But what was really going on?
On his Instagram livestream, Stanhope “was talking about it being his 34th anniversary of starting comedy,” according to Twitter/X user @shroomfactory. “Then there was a knock at the door — and he said ‘idk who that is — no one I know would knock.’ and then the raid started.”
Live video captured and shared on Twitter/X appears to document Stanhope being apprehended by multiple men carrying large weapons. A backlit figure — Stanhope, according to viewers of the livestream — is on the floor, following the armed men’s instructions. When he’s finally led outside, we hear a loud, “Relax, dude!” A second man is also taken into custody as the men at the door yell, “Police! Search warrant!” As several armed men finally enter the room, one approaches the camera and the livestream ends.
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Redditors on both r/StandUpComedy and r/DougStanhope had competing theories about what happened. The most obvious conclusion: The comic was actually arrested for some unknown crime. “Stanhope just started a IG live and a few min in apparently got raided by a swat team serving a search warrant,” posted user frenchbenefits.
Others believe it’s an elaborate prank. User thebigabsurd posted a screengrab allegedly proving that men’s rifles weren’t loaded. “Going to be fun hearing what exactly happened, but there’s absolutely zero chance the police serve a warrant and raid a house with weapons drawn, without having their rifles loaded,” read the accompanying post.
What’s the real story? Last night, user information588588 noted, “This was purportedly the Sheriff’s Office executing the search warrant. The Cochise County Sheriff’s website seems to update its Bookings page very promptly, looks like they run a report every morning.”
But as of this morning, says information588588, Stanhope didn’t appear on its report. What does that mean? “There are too many variables still in play to draw any real conclusions from this,” said this morning’s post.
Not surprisingly, neither Stanhope’s website nor his social feeds offer clarification at this point. Stay tuned.
