Call of Duty Gaming Community Points To 'Swatting' In Wichita Police Shooting (dailydot.com)

schwit1 shares a report from The Daily Dot: A man was killed by police Thursday night in Wichita, Kansas, when officers responded to a false report of a hostage situation. The online gaming community is saying the dead man was the victim of a swatting prank, where trolls call in a fake emergency and force SWAT teams to descend on a target's house. If that's true, this would be the first reported swatting-related death. Wichita deputy police chief Troy Livingston told the Wichita Eagle that police were responding to a report that a man fighting with his parents had accidentally shot his dad in the head and was holding his mom, brother and sister hostage. When police arrived, "A male came to the front door," Livingston told the Eagle. "As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon." The man at the door was identified by the Eagle as 28-year-old Andrew Finch. Finch's mother told reporters "he was not a gamer," but the online Call of Duty community claims his death was the result of a gamer feud which Finch may not have even been a part of.
UPDATE: The New York Daily News reports police in Los Angeles have now arrested 25-year-old gamer Tyler Barriss, who the paper describes as "an alleged serial 'prankster'..."

"Barriss gave cops Finch's address, mistakenly believing it belonged to a person he had feuded with over a $1 or $2 Call of Duty wager."

Comments

Reporting on this is terrible

[ArtemaOne]

To make it clear, the man who was shot by police was not the intended victim of the swatting, and had nothing to do with either party. The police just rolled in and picked off the first guy they saw.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[cob666]

You are making an assumption on the situation. What we know is that as far as the police THOUGHT they were rolling on a murder and hostage situation (hostage in danger of murder as well). We don't know if the potential hostage taker had his hands hidden, whether he made any sharp movements - basically we know nothing. We don't know if the officer followed procedure, or what he was responding to. To say that they just rolled up and shot the first person they saw is only showing your bias and not what was reported.

Fixed that for you...

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[Baron_Yam]

Unless the guy answered the door shouting he was going to kill the cops, or unless he was holding a firearm as he opened the door....

There's pretty much no scenario where the swatting aspect is significant compared to the cop killing the guy who answered the door.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[rmdingler]

To say that they just rolled up and shot the first person they saw is only showing your bias and not what was reported.

Essentially, they did just that, shooting the 1st person to come to the door... bad luck he fit the physical description of the reported assailant. From the footage, it appears the police are hundreds of feet from the front door, so in exchange for placing themselves at a relatively safe distance, discerning a sudden move as harmful intent or honest-to-goodness surprise was near impossible.

Moral of the story? When the police have weapons trained on you, hopefully you don't need to sneeze...

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[Hognoxious]

You are making an assumption on the situation.

He is, but in his case the consequences aren't that somebody dies.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[The Evil Atheist]

No, the moral of the story is no matter what you do, you're probably going to get killed by the police.

Don't comply immediately? Get killed. Comply too quickly? Get killed. Don't resist arrest? Get killed. Run away? Get killed. Unable to control your body's reaction to getting suffocated? Get killed.

Discerning intent was not impossible. They were, as you say, at a safe distance. There is nothing wrong, if you think the person is about to shoot, to find cover and assess the situation, especially if you were already at a safe distance. There is nothing about policing that demands you shoot first and ask questions later. There's something wrong with Americans thinking they're going to be the hero. There's nothing wrong with hiding. You're supposed to be the police. You're not a fucking soldier.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[rmdingler]

A death had already been reported at the residence, with future deaths eminent. The poor bastard who opened the door did not comply instantly with their instructions, as he was righteously confused... but he does appear to make some ill-advised quick movement with shaky spotlights and police rifles trained on him.

Right or wrong is, unfortunately, for later discussion... if living through the ordeal is your goal, just put your fracking hands up and move slowly.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[The Evil Atheist]

Yeah, because your average person has done time in their local improv theater group and knows how to act in an alarming situation.

Imagine cops burst into your house right now. You're telling me you'll be calm and collected in that situation? Maybe you are. But to demand that of everyone is just ridiculous. They're cops. They're paid and trained to handle these situations and should be held to a higher standard. As they are in saner developed countries.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[mtmra70]

Discerning intent was not impossible. They were, as you say, at a safe distance. There is nothing wrong, if you think the person is about to shoot, to find cover and assess the situation, especially if you were already at a safe distance. There is nothing about policing that demands you shoot first and ask questions later. There's something wrong with Americans thinking they're going to be the hero. There's nothing wrong with hiding. You're supposed to be the police. You're not a fucking soldier.

Even soldiers are held to higher standards and typically cannot, and will not, shoot unless shot at first. Obviously different when they are actively invading a building after having tons of intel, but normally on patrol they do not shoot first in hostile zones.

I love how city policy do more killing, with less info, and in less hostile areas, than our military.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[religionofpeas]

The poor bastard who opened the door did not comply instantly with their instructions, as he was righteously confused...

A decent system allows for innocent people to be confused and not comply instantly, without getting executed on the spot.

A police officer could carry a shield to protect himself, instead of a finger on the trigger.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[dissy]

You are making an assumption on the situation. What we know is that as far as the police knew they were rolling on a murder and hostage situation (hostage in danger of murder as well). We don't know if the potential hostage taker had his hands hidden, whether he made any sharp movements - basically we know nothing. We don't know if the officer followed procedure, or what he was responding to. To say that they just rolled up and shot the first person they saw is only showing your bias and not what was reported.

This is untrue.

The police have released the 911 call audio, a dash camera video, and the body camera video from the police officer who made the shot.

All of this is linked in the article above, specifically the kansas.com news URL.
You can see all of the things you claim "we" don't know.

You can see the victim raising his hands, but then turning sideways and making a stance with his legs that one might do if they are about to angle a weapon on someone. At that moment one of his hands was, from the side view, in the back and not visible.

It does look like, in hindsight, he was attempting to appear unarmed and likely succeeded in doing so for the police that saw him open the door when he was standing face-on.
By the time he was standing sideways however, any officer who just arrived not seeing before this point, including the one who fired, would only see what looks like an intentionally hidden hand being moved in an action one would do if they had a weapon and was about to raise it.

With the fact the shooting officer only had partial information being witnessed, and that partial information does very clearly look like the victim has a weapon, I can't fault that officer for his actions.

Only once you see the footage before that point do you clearly see he is unarmed.
And it's worth noting that all of the officers that were present at that point in time did not open fire, so clearly interpreted what they saw correctly.

You can also play the 911 call audio to answer your question "we" have about what they were responding to.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[harperska]

This is exactly right. In response to the epidemic of police shootings of innocent, unarmed, (and often black) civilians, veterans have come out saying they wished police forces would hire more vets because they have training in situational awareness that police forces sorely need.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[Cederic]

What I'm doing is not blaming the officer for believing in that half of a second the person was about to open fire, nor blame the officer for not waiting the tenth of a second or less to hear and see someone get shot or not.

I am. I'd prosecute the cunt for murder, because he just shot an unarmed man with no warning and with no justification.

If he really felt at risk, wearing his body armour, crouching in his cover, with the support of twenty colleagues, then he needs putting in jail to protect the public anyway. There is no self-defence justification going on here.

Re: Reporting on this is terrible

[Cederic]

The police didn't murder anyone in this story.

Armed man sets up ambush outside man's house, waits for him to open the door, yells incomprehensible instructions while blind the man then shoots him dead a quarter of a second later.

Sounds like murder to me.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[Cederic]

I do fucking blame him, outright. I also said he should be prosecuted for murder - that's the process by which my interpretation gets examined and justice is applied.

The 911 call is no justification at all. That's a prompt for the police to attend a situation, assess it, and respond appropriately. Killing an innocent man is not an appropriate response.

The video shows a man doing what he was asked to do - raise his hands. So no, that's not something to react to.

I recognise that you blame the idiot that made the 911 call, and not the victim. I agree with you on those points. I also blame the murdering cunt that killed a man, and want to see him face a court.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[JaredOfEuropa]

What I'm doing is not blaming the officer for believing in that half of a second the person was about to open fire, nor blame the officer for not waiting the tenth of a second or less to hear and see someone get shot or not.

You should blame the officer for that. He shot an innocent civilian who is now dead because cops think their safety comes first. It shouldn't. Reacting to an obviously armed guy clearly in the progress of doing something criminal is not at all the same thing as reacting to a civilian in a situation that is not at all clear, where it isn't even certain whether the guy is armed or not. In that case cops should take due care, take cover, and give the guy all benefit of the doubt. That does mean that the guy might get off a shot (with a rather low likelilood of hitting anything), putting the cops at risk. Well, that's what they are getting paid for.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[sjames]

The cop was behind a car and is supposed to be a trained professional. Why didn't he just duck? The camera shot clearly shows that he had that option. Sorry, but the hard part about being "the good guys" is that you don't get to shoot first when you're too far away to verify your target. If you shoot first, you're just another goon with a gun and innocent people end up dead.

The lot of them were literally tools. They were the tools of an outraged gamer getting disproportionate revenge against the wrong target over a couple dollars.

The police should ask themselves "were we a force for good that night?". Considering that an innocent man was shot dead while doing nothing, the answer can only be NO. They were not a force for good that night.

Rather than making excuses, the police need to be explaining how they will change their response so that never happens again.

Re: Reporting on this is terrible

[Dixie_Flatline]

The whole reason swatting works is because the police are notoriously over-anxious when going into these situations. If police were calm and collected and approached these situations even slightly more deliberatively, this would not be an issue.

What confounds me is what even IF this were a real hostage situation, why would you shoot at whoever comes to the door immediately? You might just as easily hit an escaping hostage as the perp. If all we care about is protecting police lives over that of the general populace, just donâ(TM)t send the cops at all. Simply refuse to show up, or immediately bomb the house from a plane. I admire the ideal of the police, but it is not a useful institution if they consider their safety more important than that of the people they have sworn to protect.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

You are comparing apples and oranges there. You are assuming that the officer would react exactly as a civilian would in that situation. The police are supposed to be trained for situations that you and I are not trained to deal with. If they react as the average citizen would then their training was crap.

The problem is that police are trained to think that everyone not wearing the same uniform as they are is a dangerous criminal and lives only for the chance to kill them. And that sends the message to the public that the police are a greater danger than the criminals.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[Solandri]

the police WERE TOLD THAT they were rolling on a murder and hostage situation (hostage in danger of murder as well)

Fixed that for you.

The problem began with the bad intel. While the police bear some of the blame due to their over-aggressive response, your characterization removes blame entirely from the original intel source - the prankster.

Bear in mind that even if the police respond appropriately, this sort of pranking still incurs a cost onto society. If there's no pranking (or a small chance of it), police can assume the intel is probably correct and barge in ASAP to neutralize the situation. But if pranking is common, they have to take more time to assess the situation once they arrive on-site, increasing the possibility that (had it been an actual murder/hostage situation) the hostage-taker will notice what's up, decide there's no escape, and kill the hostage and himself.

The prankster needs to go on trial for destroying two lives. The guy who was killed, and the police officer who now has to live with knowing he killed an innocent. That's independent of whether or not you want the police officer to go on trial.

Re: Reporting on this is terrible

[reboot246]

No, there are two people guilty of murder - the idiot who made the call AND the police officer who pulled the trigger.

I'm not a "hater" of the police. My late wife was a police officer. I like and respect the police. Never had any problems with them because I treat them like human beings doing a thankless job. But the officer in this case was wrong, wrong, wrong.

The victim was standing in the light and couldn't see the police as clearly as they could see him. Stand in your doorway at night with a bright light shining in your face and tell me what you see. The officer could see him much better than you can in the video. There was no reason to shoot first. Even if the victim had a gun, he could not have seen well enough to actually hit any of the officers. They would have had ample opportunity to shoot back.

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[echnaton192]

But you do know that the police in other countries - including the SWAT-Teams - are trained differently?

That the police is trained way longer than in the US before being released to the public?

That police is trained to deescalate a situation and is only shooting if you are actually approaching them with a gun?

Your police shot one innocent man with more bullets than our police shot in a whole year, including the mercykills on animals? And this includes encouters with criminals wielding guns.

But that costs money. Buying cheap is sometimes very expensive.

I am shure british, french or russian people could provide sources to backup my post, but here are my sources:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

2 years! Compare that to the US. For fucks sake, people here train harder to be a certified private security guard on private property than your actual police in most of the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

No one here fears for their lives on daily encounters with the police. Even if the suspects run away or do not comply, as long as no violence and no weapons are involved. And they are not trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

You risk broken bones, but the brutality and recklessness we see in those videos are not there. Some policemen are assholes and there were actual murders by the police that were swept under the rug, but if you show the footage of the most infamous killings in the US to German Police Officers, they‘d tell you that this goes against any training they had.

You know - the first step to solve a problem is to recognize there is one...

Re:Reporting on this is terrible

[ScentCone]

the hard part about being "the good guys" is that you don't get to shoot first

Except, of course, thanks to the jackass gamer who set this in motion, the cops believed the man himself had already TOLD them that he'd shot first (and killed someone with a handgun in his possession) and that he was willing to kill more people, and that he'd soaked the home - with people still in it - with gas and was thinking of torching it. And then, alas, made a sharp move when told not to do that exact thing, because he's (according to what police believed was the man himself) probably armed with the same handgun that he'd supposedly just used to kill someone and threaten more.

"were we a force for good that night?"

Yes, they were. Because they saddled up to go to a situation where death was already a factor and where someone willing to kill would - as often happens - possibly skew towards taking one of their lives. Just like a cop can get in a fatal (for someone else) car accident, her willingness to go out every day for crappy pay and risk her neck for your sake IS being a force for good. Shit happens.

explaining how they will change their response so that never happens again

You're asking them to lie. Why would you do that? No cop could or would promise to you that they'll never again encounter a situation that leads them to believe that an armed, violent, and probably unhinged person who's just killed someone else might - on a split second's turn of events, cross the perceived threshold requiring the use of force. Your expectation that cops be willing to die (as another two of them just did today) is absurd, and you know it.

Re:It's a male, take him down!

[Faluzeer]

I noticed in the reuters report the following :

“As the incident unfolded, a 28-year-old male opened the front screen door and stood in the doorway or just outside that doorway,” he said. “Officers gave him several verbal commands to put his hands up and walk towards them.”

A police officer opened fire, shooting once, after the man quickly raised his hands and appeared to point a weapon at the officers, Livingston said.

I wonder if any body / dash cams were working...

Link :
https://www.reuters.com/articl...

Knock, knock...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but the online Call of Duty community claims his death was the result of a gamer feud which Finch may not have even been a part of.

Serously? They called a heavily armed Swat team of trigger happy American cops on the wrong guy over a computer game feud? Every time I think we have reached peak stupid somebody knocks from above.

Murder charges all around...

[Grog6]

Whoever made the call, as well as the officers who couldn't be bothered to Not shoot someone.

With their record, does anyone actually Call the police anymore for real calls anymore?

Seems like when people call for service, they're calling to be murdered...

Re: Murder charges all around...

[c6gunner]

With their record, does anyone actually Call the police anymore for real calls anymore?

Seems like when people call for service, they're calling to be murdered...

Over 1 million cops make contact with the public a minimum of 40 million times per year. Of those 40+ million encounters, maybe 1,000 will result in the death of a suspect.

Now, I realize that Slashdot isn't quite what it used to be, but I would still expect the average person on here to at least have a basic understanding of statistics and probability. The fact that you would post something so ignorant in the first place is bad enough on it's own, but the multiple upmods are really disappointing.

What intelligence?

[Anonymous Coward]

... one of our officers discharged his weapon.

So the man at the door might be a hostage, which the police knew, were present. This is a total lack of concern for other people in the apartment.

White guy. No big deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazingly, there won't be any riots, nor TVs stolen from stores that are broken into during the riots.

Re: It's a male, take him down!

[c6gunner]

I wonder if any body / dash cams were working...

Given that the linked article includes body cam video, I'm going to guess the answer is "yes".

Re:I am going to say it

[The Evil Atheist]

No. You live in a sick fucking country. Other countries in the developed world are not like this.

Re: It's a male, take him down!

[Anonymous Coward]

1. In cases where people riot over a police shooting, the person shot is usually not complying with police orders. Rule 1: do what the person with a gun says.

2. The issue here is that people are swatting, not that the swat team shot someone. Those teams are brought into the most volatile situations and must be on a hair trigger if they want to go home each night. Because of this, if they think they see a gun, you will be shot. Rule 2: if a swat team orders you to put your hands up, do it slowly and deliberately.

The real issue here is swatting. This is not a prank. It has always been deadly and it is only luck that nobody has been shot until now. I hope they catch the person that did this and put him/her in prison for a long time.

BULLSHIT

In this case, they had no verified information that they were actually in a volatile situation, and they shot a guy from 200 feet away without verifying he was armed.

The JOB of the police is to PROTECT people, not create a "volatile situation" on their own simply because some jackass gave them bad information.

They didn't even bother to verify the information they were given.

Some guy walks out onto his porch, and they shoot him from 200 feet away. Didn't bother to verify if he was armed - they were TOO FUCKING FAR AWAY TO DO THAT.

The fact that "swatting" is even possible means the police are TOO READY to be all butch.

Government in the US is out of control - literally.

Re: It's a male, take him down!

[Anonymous Coward]

The cops were 50+ yards away from the front porch.

"A police officer opened fire, shooting once, after the man quickly raised his hands and appeared to point a weapon at the officers"

Bullshit. Unless that officer was using a pair of binoculars. Stupid, panicky pigs.

Everything wrong with America

[gurps_npc]

Douche bags being reckless with other people's lives

Criminals thinking that what they did isn't that bad.

Militarized Cops - sure of their own righteous AND the villany of their target - over-reacting and shooting an innocent man

The various businesses saying "it's not our problem" rather than preventing anonymous calls to police/spoofed phone numbers.

People going "how horrible", but not really objecting or demanding action, because of how rare it is.

Neither political party taking appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again, because hey, no one really demanded action.

Re: It's a male, take him down!

[JaredOfEuropa]

Swat guys will not ring the door before taking sufficient cover, or else they are doing it wrong. And if they have decent cover, they have absolutely no business being on a hair trigger, shooting when they think the guy might be reaching for a gun.

Also: police work isn't even in the top 10 of most dangerous professions, so there's not that much call in general to shoot first before assessing the situation when dealing with a CIVILIAN (not a "perp", not a criminal, bt a suspect at best). Or perhaps being a cop in the USA isn't all that dangerous because they are so trigger happy. Don't get me wrong, being a cop is a difficult job and I have a lot of respect for the people who put themselves on the line every day. But being a cop, putting yourself on the line means just that: you take risks in order to protect the populace. If you are dealing with a member of the public, their safety comes first, not yours. Be careful but keep the damn gun holstered until there is a reason to draw it... like they do in normal countries.

I had police pull firearms on me

[lamer01]

And so did a buddy of mine. Both white. Both in relatively affluent areas. Both times for absolutely no good reason (there was no justification for them pulling me or him over and no tickets issued). Neither of those areas ever had a shooting happen towards a police officer. And, this was many years ago, like 30 years. The cop had his firearm pointed at my head from behind me while I was talking to the another police officer through the window. So, I am sure I was quite close to getting killed had I made a move that they considered 'threatening'. Once you have an experience like that you will never forget it and you won't spout your mouth off as 'police are justified' and all that bullshit. So, cops have always been inclined to pull their weapons for no good reason. You know the saying, 'If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?'. Well, I think that is the main problem here. Police are trained to resolve issues through force and that's what they know how to do so they do it. I know my stories are anecdotal but they have created a deep mistrust of police and most authoritarian symbols which I make sure to convey to anyone who will listen.

Re: It's a male, take him down!

[MillionthMonkey]

Something is wrong with the way Americans train police. I don't think they know this, but American police are the butt of jokes around the world. They're not real cops.

Most of them are former security guards and prison guards who think their guns are toys, like this acquitted Philip Mitchell Brailsford piece of shit who forced a guy begging for his life to play "Simon Says", pumped five rounds into him, and then typically claimed self defense like an American policeman will always do.

Cops with prior military training don't act like this at all. Maybe you would be better served by unloading your current "police force" and starting anew with recruits who have been trained to respect weapons and understand that they serve the public, not the other way around.

Re:Two points on this

[sootman]

> 1. When the cops tell you to do something, you do it.

Five cops burst into your room on an otherwise regular boring day in your regular boring life where shit like this NEVER happens. You are scared out of your mind. One of them yells "Don't move!" and at the same time another yells "Get down on the ground, NOW!" You can barely hear the instructions from the noise all five are making. What is the correct course of action here?

Re: It's a male, take him down!

[drinkypoo]

Something is wrong with the way Americans train police. I don't think they know this, but American police are the butt of jokes around the world. They're not real cops.

In order to become a cop in America, you need a grand total of two years of community college, and to pass some extremely pathetic tests. In order to carry a gun as a cop in America, you have to pass some extremely pathetic qualifying exams, which are often cheated upon with the participation of management. In cop school, they're teaching recruits that there is a war on cops, even though this is the safest time in history to be a cop in America, and they are killing citizens in record numbers.

Everything is wrong with the way Americans train police.