Slashdot Mirror
Kansas 'Swat' Perpetrator Had Already Been To Prison For Fake Bomb Threats (go.com)
More details are emerging about an online gamer whose fake call to Kansas police led to a fatal shooting:
- "After phoning in a false bomb threat to a Glendale, California TV station in 2015, Tyler Barriss threatened to kill his grandmother if she reported him, according to local reports and court documents." -- The Wichita Eagle
- "The Glendale Police Department confirmed to ABC News that Tyler Barriss made about 20 calls to universities and media outlets throughout the country around the time he was arrested for a bomb threat to Los Angeles ABC station KABC in 2015... He was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail, court records show." -- ABC News
- "Within months of his release in August, he had already become the target of a Los Angeles Police Department investigation into similar hoax calls... LAPD detectives were planning to meet with federal prosecutors to discuss their investigation..." -- The Los Angeles Times
- The Wichita Eagle reports that even after the police had fatally shot the person SWauTistic was pretending to be, he continued his phone call with the 911 operator for another 16 minutes -- on a call which lasted over half an hour.
- Brian Krebs reports that police may have been aided in their investigation by another reformed SWAT perpetrator -- adding that SWauTistic privately claimed to have already called in fake emergencies at approximately 100 schools and 10 homes.
Just last month SWauTistic's Twitter account showed him bragging about a bomb threat which caused the evacuation of a Dallas convention center, according to the Daily Beast -- after which SWauTistic encouraged his Twitter followers to also follow him on a second account, "just in case twitter suspends me for being a god." Later the 25-year-old tweeted that "if you can't pull off a swat without getting busted you're not a leet hacking God its that simple."
Barriss remains in jail in Los Angeles with no bond, though within three weeks he's expected to be extradited to Kansas for his next trial.
Better yet, don't make bomb threats.
Better yet, just don't be a hazard to society.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
This guy thought he was a l33t hacker because the police hadn't caught him, but it seems like the first time they tried they were able to roll him up in a few hours. He's an idiot with a vastly inflated sense of self worth, and it got an innocent person killed.
I read the internet for the articles.
In 2015. So why isn't he still behind bars?
No, we need to get rid of criminals, especially repeat offenders like this guy who has now caused the death of someone else for his own pathetic ego.
Making a false report is already illegal, and there's a decent case that this guy could get some form of manslaughter charge as well. Laws aren't going to fix this.
I, for one, am betting on AI being the best hope. Let AI watch conversations on games (where it is a private affair, mind you, not a constitutional issue), and start cracking down on overly-aggressive players before they can turn into hazards.
The moment something crosses the line of legality, the game platform should have all the logs and records needed to make an easy case for prosecution, and that case law is what will change the public perception, and in turn reduce incidents. If the perpetrators know that they'll get caught and likely convicted, they'll find other (hopefully more legal and less lethal) means to vent their frustrations.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
We need laws which make it illegal for the cops to roll up on someone and execute them on the basis that someone claimed that there was a crime occurring at a specific address. In the best case, they are risking killing a hostage.
Wait, you meant anti-SWATting laws? It's already illegal to do what he did. That didn't stop him. You think making it more illegal would have stopped him?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What we need to do is fix our stupidassed phone system so this type of thing is no longer possible. The fact that you can spoof CallerID is absurd.
Unfortunately research has shown that its not the severity of the punishment that deters individuals from perpetrating those crimes, its the certainty of being caught. This individual knew the repercussions both legally and socially if he was caught, but he did it anyway because he was sure he could get away with it. He wasn't wrong either. Although he was caught, the current 911 system in this country makes it incredibly easy to hide your tracks. Various VoIP and online telephony services along with VPN's and fake registration info can make investigations much more challenging. In addition to that, 911 operators don't currently have the tools at their disposal to be absolutely sure where a call is coming from, especially in the cases of VoIP and mobile calls. We could do a lot more to stop this sort of criminal behavior before it even happens by making it a certainty that this kind of activity will be detected swiftly and dealt with.
This is all fine and good but maybe lets discuss the innocent civilians literally killed by police for no reason? Over-response much? "To protect?" LOL, you mean "target pratice?" Just look at the facts, being a police officer is one of the SAFEST jobs in America but because they have been brainwashed and have triggers on guns they are the MOST dangerous people in the world.
These paranoid lunatics kill who knows how many regular innocent people and while some of it makes news, most of it is covered up.
It's time to discuss whether a military response is necessary for common household domestic matters.
He should get a gold sticker for "not being in a nuclear war within a year". Wow, what an accomplishment.
This. Reminds me of those who praised George W. Bush in 2002 and later, for keeping the country safe because there hadn't been an attack ... since 9/11.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Unfortunately research has shown that its not the severity of the punishment that deters individuals from perpetrating those crimes, its the certainty of being caught.
This, in spades.
The severity of the punishment should fit the crime, but beyond a certain level of severity, there is no additional deterrence. That is one of may reasons why the death penalty should be abolished.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Better yet, just don't be a hazard to society.
Who is the hazard? The SWAT team went to a random address, based on an anonymous phone call, and killed the innocent occupant for basically no reason at all.
Barriss should be held accountable. But he didn't "murder" anyone. The SWAT team did that.
Ok, so this punk will get the punishment he richly deserved long before an innocent man was killed.
Now, can we go back to punishing the actual killer — the cop, who pulled the trigger? Unlike certain Michael Brown, this victim really was raising his hands. Why was he shot at? Why will not you and me be shot at in the same situation?
It sure seems like police are trying to throw all of the responsibility on the prankster, the better to protect one of their own... We should not allow that to happen.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Read TFS. They already did.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If, in arguably one of the richest nations that's ever existed, you cannot afford to hire enough police to enforce all the laws you've passed in a just and non-abusive manner while not violating civil rights, without having to lower the standards to such low levels and allow them to get away with abusing the public rather than lose a warm body in uniform, perhaps...just perhaps...you've PASSED TOO MANY DAMNED LAWS!!!!1!!
That's weird, I'd have thought some european country would be the champion of too many laws.
I guess they don't kill enough of their citizens to qualify.
The SWAT team didn't murder anybody.
From a legal standpoint they almost certainly did not. From a moral standpoint it's definitely arguable that they did.
I've made bad decisions in my life and lived with the regret, but none of those decisions has ever resulted in anyone losing their life especially not an innocent person's life. I don't believe the cop who killed an innocent man wanted to take a life that day but I would have a hard time living with myself if I had been the one to kill that guy.
Even if no charges were ever brought against me (and they almost certainly wouldn't be) I would feel guilty for the rest of my life. I would relive that moment and ask myself why I felt I had to shoot a man who I would later learn was unarmed.
It's not a simple case of murder because it's definitely not that but it is an example of how law enforcement in the US is unjust and harms the innocent.
This guy repeatedly, intentionally, with malice aforethought, put people's lives in danger. He may not have pulled the trigger, but IMO, he should still be found guilty of felony murder (in the first degree) and tried accordingly. Watching him get a lethal injection sentence *might* be enough to deter others who still think it's fun....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I, for one, am betting on AI being the best hope. Let AI watch conversations on games (where it is a private affair, mind you, not a constitutional issue), and start cracking down on overly-aggressive players before they can turn into hazards.
Modded 5 insightful. Seriously? AI is already moderating Youtube comments. How well do you think that's going?
And in games only? How do you plan on training the AI anyway? I can just imagine an AI sending a SWAT team to my place just because I said "Fred, Shoot that guy! Finish him off!" during a Call of Duty game.
There, they will get released after a while, unless they manage to do something really large. People like this one need to go under permanent supervision. At the same time, it can rightfully be said that this person is insane and hence prison is again not the right place, as punishment will accomplish exactly nothing. (Yes, I do understand that prison in the US is about revenge and economic incentives, not punishment. But unless the US stops using the mind-set of a stone-age primitive here, problems like this will not get solves and will continue to cause significant damage to society.)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There are much older societies, with bigger government than the US that have even more laws, but don't end up with the police slaughtering people left and right. There's a seemingly unique quality to US policing that results in more officer-involved shootings. Maybe it's the number of weapons in private hands, which means US police have to go into every encounter with a civilian as if it were against an armed combatant. Maybe it's just that policing in the US is a more macho, militarized affair.
I honestly don't know the answer. Maybe there's something unique about the US that makes us more likely to be violent.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I've not watched the body-cam video on the page linked above but wow. How far away were they? It looks as if they got the wrong address and once the mistake was discovered, couldn't be bothered to drive even vaguely near the correct address!
Unless the murdered householder had a sniper rifle, what possible danger could he pose?
Requiem for the American Dream
Perhaps the police and swat should be forced to dogfood their service.
Once per day, the home of the relative of a police/swat-team member should be swatted randomly. Pretty soon, procedures would change.
Requiem for the American Dream
I would relive that moment and ask myself why I felt I had to shoot a man who I would later learn was unarmed.
I would assume you could then immediately answer that with "because I believed he was armed and did not want him to murder me or anyone else".
Pretty short discussion, really.
Three cheers for state-sponsored rape! Hup hup hurrah!
They showed up at a hose that didn't meet the caller's description, fired within seconds at distance, at someone for all they knew was one of the purported hostages. Of course the cop attached to the itchy trigger finger needs to spend a few years in prison for manslaughter. Cops get false or misleading calls all the time - if they can't assess the situation without killing a person in 5 seconds, they have no business being a cop.
Prioritization. Cops can always concentrate on actual crime, as opposed to nuisance traffic or pot possession tickets.
Nah, they'd just know that they can't "screw up" and get away with it. When every cop knows a cop who did time for kidnapping (false arrest), breaking and entering (search without a warrant) they'll stop acting like unaccountable goons.
How large a percentage of the US population is black? According to a quick Google search, around 13%.
These are the kind of numbers we need for statistics to make sense. With 13% of the population making up 25% of a statistic, that percentage has a marked increase in chance/risk of whatever the statistic is made to show. In this case, risk of getting shot and killed.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
It's easy to moralize when your life isn't on the line.
At the distance and light conditions and view on the target we are talking about, the police officer's life wasn't on the line. Anybody thinking differently is severely unsuitable for doing police duty as they would be a danger to themselves and others.
Murder charges are not strict liability - you need to be able to show the accused intended the death. It's not enough for the accused to have merely caused the death through reckless stupidity
Quote: "Many states use the California definition of implied malice to describe an unintentional killing that is charged as murder because the defendant intended to do serious bodily injury, or acted with extreme recklessness." Calling a SWAT team to a home pretending that there is a hostage situation is extreme recklessness. If it ends with a person being dead, it is murder.
These are the kind of numbers we need for statistics to make sense. With 13% of the population making up 25% of a statistic, that percentage has a marked increase in chance/risk of whatever the statistic is made to show. In this case, risk of getting shot and killed.
You are correct, if black people are 13% of the population and 25% of people killed by the police, that's not right. However, saying "the majority of people shot by police are black" is still untrue and gives a very wrong picture.
Blacks get killed disproportionately more because they disproportionately behave in ways that give police the excuse to shoot. They commit more crime, drive more erratically, attempt to escape more, run more, talk back more, more often carry weapons, fight more, resist more, disobey more, and are simply more discourteous. The cops aren't racist. They kill plenty of Caucasians too.
(||) Nehmo (||)
So many people here hating the cop that shot an innocent, unarmed man. There's some anti-police rhetoric, but mostly it's because a police officer went into a dubious situation and killed someone. This is not proper policing.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes