Katie Bedford, who joined OpTic Gaming yesterday, apologized today via Twitter for a tweet she made in March 2017 about running over Native Nations Rise protesters.
In the original tweet, Bedford, who was known as Katie Frates and who was an editor and producer for the Daily Caller at the time, wondered how many Native Nations Rise activists she could run over before she was arrested. The activists were protesting in Washington, D.C. against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and President Donald Trump’s support of it.
Bedford called that tweet “grossly inappropriate” and that she thought it was “snarky,” and apologized to those impacted by the tweet, for not apologizing three years ago, and for not having better judgment.
She said she didn’t apologize before today because she was “terrified of addressing this publicly.” Bedford also said she’ll be donating any stream revenue over the next week to charities supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which was affected by the DAPL and heavily protested its construction in 2016 and 2017.
After spending one season as a desk host during Call of Duty World League events, Bedford wasn’t re-signed heading into the inaugural franchised Call of Duty League. Lottie Van-Praag, who previously worked for Gfinity, has served as the league’s desk host this season.
Bedford joined OpTic Gaming yesterday as a presumed content creator. The news of her signing was met with general immediate praise before a Reddit post revealing the 2017 tweet began to gain momentum. At time of writing, the Reddit post of her signing is the fifth-most popular post on the competitive CoD subreddit in the past 24 hours.
