David Perez, 23, had always wanted to be a police officer. This year he is studying at the Avila Academy. There he received a message from his superiors: they were looking for young people who knew how to play some video games very well, almost like professionals. Perez applied because he was very good at Valorant, a shooting game. Today he is one of the members of the c1b3rwall, the official eSports team of the National Police.
The team will currently compete in two video games: Valorant and the most classic of all competitive games, League of Legends. In Valorant they will start with the Storm circuit, a kind of second division. As of January they will officially compete with two great aspirations: one, to win and go up to first to compete with professionals. Two, to make themselves known as agents in a new sector and away from the usual routines of the Police. This Saturday is the official presentation of the team at the Amazon Gamergy fair in Madrid.
“It all started because thanks to the Cybersecurity Congress that we set up every year, the c1b3rwall, we received many emails from eSports fans who had suffered scams or had their profiles stolen,” says Casimiro Nevado, the chief inspector who launched the project. How can you reach this group that traditionally does not consume media? With an official Police team competing, make streams on their own Twitch channel and spread what they have summarized in a decalogue with rules like “you don’t know who is on the other side of the screen. Do not share intimate images and videos. Be wary” or “a sedentary lifestyle is not a healthy way of life”.
The teams will also do exhibition tournaments. The first is scheduled for February at the Avila National Academy. The invited team will be the KPI, from Valorant. The competition will not only be with video games, eSports professionals will have to put themselves to the test in physical exercises with the police. “I am very surprised and I love that the Police have taken this initiative,” says Eric Devil Murillo, director of KPI. “It is a way of reaching this public, behind the professionals there are many fans and children. It is a way of raising awareness throughout the sector”, he adds.
“We are the first team from a police force in the world of eSports,” says Nevado. “The police have to be everywhere and video games are already the most important entertainment industry,” he adds.
The project has been so fast that the players still do not have a training room with proper computers at the Academy. But they will have it “soon”, says Nevado. The team will be comparable to those that the Police already have in athletics or Olympic shooting. Nevado recalls that Olympic medalist Saul Craviotto is a police officer.
Nevado had no doubts when he sent the message to the students. “Surely there are specialists,” he thought. He received about 70 responses. Of all, they selected 15: five starters for each video game and some substitutes. There is a girl in the group. Another member of the League of Legends team has officially competed in eSports with UCAM from Murcia.
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Source: EL PAIS
