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Kansas 'Swat' Perpetrator Charged; Faces 11 More Years in Prison (latimes.com)
Jail time looms for 25-year-old Tyler Barriss, whose fake call to Kansas police led to a fatal shooting:
- Barriss "was in a Wichita jail on Saturday," Reuters reported, and even his first court appearance Friday was a video appearance from jail.
- Barriss was charged with involuntary manslaughter, and if convicted "could face up to 11 years and three months in prison." He was also charged with making a false alarm, which is considered a felony. The District Attorney adds that others have also been identified as "potential suspects" in the case, but they're still deciding whether to charge them.
- Barriss' bond has been set at $500,000.
- Friday Barriss gave his first interview to a local news outlet -- from jail. "Of course, you know, I feel a little of remorse for what happened," he tells KWCH. "I never intended for anyone to get shot and killed. I don't think during any attempted swatting anyone's intentions are for someone to get shot and killed..."
Asked about the call, Barriss acknowledged that "It hasn't just affected my life, it's affected someone's family too. Someone lost their life. I understand the magnitude of what happened. It's not just affecting me because I'm sitting in jail. I know who it has affected. I understand all of that."
- Barriss has also been charged in Calgary with public mischief, fraud and mischief for another false phone call, police said, though it's unlikely he'll ever be arrested unless he enters the country. Just six days before the fatal shooting, Barriss had made a nearly identical call to police officers in Canada, this time supplying the address of a well-known video gamer who livestreams on Twitch, and according to one eyewitness more than 20 police cars surrounded her apartment building for at least half an hour.
You called in a situation that led to the police sending in armed, trigger happy troops. These guys are under immense pressure, expecting to have to deal with hostages, armed kidnappers, and whatever else. What the hell did you think would happen - the police would knock on the door politely, walk in calmly, and sit down for some milk and cookies?
You didn't think. You just went and pulled the trigger, not caring about the potential consequences, acting like it was all a game.
Sure, the Kansas police bear a part of the burden - the training of their SWAT teams (and other SWAT teams around the country) is far too militaristic, and they call them out far too quickly (although in fairness, that's not always obvious until after the event.) But the bulk of the burden of this "incident" (for lack of a better term.. maybe "debacle"?) falls squarely upon the guy who made the false report, and the culture that considers SWATting to be a "harmless prank".
Maybe this will be a wake up call, and SWATting will cease to be a thing. But somehow, I doubt it.
His earlier response shows he's a psychopath, so there' no doubt that he's only feeling remorseful "for the cameras", so to speak.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Good for him! It makes you worry about the ones smart enough to avoid getting caught although.
SWAT teams should better confirm their targets anyway...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Regardless of the culpability of the police, it would be nice if they had commentary on felony murder, which seems to apply.
For those not familiar with it, it's that if anyone dies as the result of a felony, it's considered a murder, even if the killing is justified. (For example, two bank robbers with only one gun, police kill the one with the gun, and the other can be charged with murder.
As a European the sole focus on the author of the call is really stunning. Itâ(TM)s like itâ(TM)s only his fault and not in any way the fault of your police who tend to shoot way too many innocent people. EU has twice the number of inhabitant as the US and how many EU citizen get killed by the Police? For Germany it is 15x less. why? because in Europe police officer know that there will be consequences for killing an innocent citizen. In US most of the police officer just go away with it.
could hang him and i don't think anyone would cry. and that would REALLY make people think twice about doing the same. instead he gets free food and lodging on the federal government's funding.
for maliciously reporting a fake crime with the intent of fucking that person up by cop proxy.. and then getting someone killed as a result of those actions...
and he's a repeat offender..
what.. the.. fuck.
Ok, so this douchebag will get what's coming to him. We're still missing at least one person, though: The cop who shot an innocent, unarmed person. You know, the guy who did the actual killing.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Go figure. In Canada, they realise it is a hoax. In the US, people get killed.
He called the police and described a situation that would likely require deadly force. The poor person answering the door not knowing this could have reached behind himself to scratch his back, but the picture painted to the police led them to believe a gun may be imminently presented.
While he didnâ(TM)t pull the trigger, and likely the officer did too soon, none of that would have happened without that initial call.
It would be like tossing your car keys to a friend you know is drunk. He gets into an accident killing a person, and you try to say thatâ(TM)s not your fault at all. Itâ(TM)s not 100% your fault, but it couldnâ(TM)t have happened without you.
That's an absurd excuse. When numerous armed law enforcement officers show up and have been told there's a dangerous suspect, it's easy to envision that a person might get shot. A prank call is Bart Simpson calling Moe's Tavern and asking for Seymour Butts. This goes well beyond a prank call, especially because he's done it multiple times. Once hes sentenced in the US, I'd like to see him extradited to Canada to face justice there, as well. He might well serve more than 11 years in prison, and I have no problem with that.
He didn't pull the trigger. He's getting 11 years for what is essentially a prank phone call.
There was no way that he could know someone would get shot.
(Only) for the sake of argument, I'm going to agree that it was essentially a prank call. But he did very well know that this prank involved a large number of worked-up and heavily-armed police officers at the prankee's door, shouting and ready to pull their triggers.
Then he did know very well that someone could get shot, as in a significant chance someone would get shot. Do it a number of times, and that chance just gets closer and closer to unity. And he did do exactly that quite a number of times. So yes, he wilfully created the situation where it was just a matter of time before bullets would be fired by people highly trained ("SWAT") to shoot to kill first.
Though I somewhat agree with the sentiment in the sense that there are too many SWAT teams around. At one point even the department of energy had one. What do they need with a SWAT team? And as a consequence, you have many highly-trained trigger-happy enforcement officers just sitting around waiting to be used. They're not free, in fact they're rather costly, so they'll end up being used. It has happened that they've been used to come down on grannies in wheelchairs for trivial things. So in that sense, the presence of that many SWAT teams is a large unsecured gun pointed at the people. SWAT pranking still is wilfully pulling that metaphorical trigger, which eventually does lead to real deaths.
So next to putting this guy in jail, along with whoever else habitually pulls SWATting pranks, I'd say there need to be fewer SWAT teams around, and less militarisation of police forces in general.
Some people go fishing, some people send Special Weapons And Tactics teams to other people's houses. It's all just a bit of relaxing fun on a Saturday afternoon. I'm sure fishing has its dangers too. Who thinks their hobby is going to get someone killed, right? Not me or any other normal person. What has happened that you can't harmlessly tell people they're dealing with a violent and dangerous criminal and have them point a dozen loaded guns at someone anymore?
What about the officer which shot first , like a proper cowboy, without assessing the situation ? He pretty much share the responsibility and his a disgrace to "protect and server"... Scott free like any shooter like him ?
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That guy is still going to be a dangerous psychopath in 11 years. 11 years as punishment may be enough, but it certainly isn't enough to protect society from him.
He's a terrorist. How is making bomb threats and simulating hostage situations anything else? Yet nobody calls him that. They still call him a prankster. I wonder if his being a gamer-type white guy has anything to do with it.
If you rob a 7-11 at gun point, and the clerk pulls a gun in self defense and accidently shoots a bystander, not only might you get charged with murder the clerk might not be.
If someone dies as a result of a crime you committed, you can be charged with murder.
In this case, the 'prank' was to commit a felony by intentionally reporting a false alarm. For the express purpose of having an armed force dispatched into a private residence, and to maximize their tension by leading them to believe they were likely going into an extremely volatile situation with an armed murderer.
"He didn't pull the trigger."
So fucking what? What's next? You'll be telling me that mafia bosses who send thugs to intimidate people aren't responsible for any injuries or deaths that result...
Throw this asshole in prison. He deserves the maximum sentence under law.
Look it up.
REMEMBER THE MURDER OF IAN MURDOCH, creator of Debian Linux and leading member of the Free Software community, killed Christmas 2015 by the notoriously corrupt San Francisco police department.
Feed the Gulag!
"He didn't pull the trigger."
So fucking what? What's next?
You cannot make him responsible for the bullet's willful conservation of impulse.
what kind of police do you want?
Nobody murdered Ian Murdoch. Now fuck off.
How many more murders will these trigger-happy law enforcers commit while this dumb kid rots in a torture camp?
Yeh, from an outside perspective, the US is shithole, with violent incompetant police, and a large part of dumb civillians, fully armed clueless morons.
I used to feel bad about about the mass shooting, but tese days its just another bunch of dead idiots who got what they deserved for allowing their society to deteriorate into the lowest common denominator.
The US, the first empire to go from rise to fall without an intervening priod of civillisation.
Sad.
You mentioned several important issues: 1) Police are sometimes "trigger happy troops". 2) Police are "under immense pressure". Yes! Difficult job. 3) "Kansas police ... training of ... SWAT teams ... is far too militaristic." 4) "... the bulk of the burden ... falls squarely upon the guy who made the false report..."
There are other issues. Putting someone in prison for years: 1) Damages that person mentally and increases the mental disturbance they have when they enter prison. 2) Costs taxpayers HUGE amounts of money. The government should be required to post on a web site the cost to taxpayers of keeping each prisoner in prison. 3) When the prisoner is released, he or she is usually less likely to be able to lead a healthy life.
Norway is rehabilitative, not destructive, to those who commit crimes. Michael Moore's film, Where to Invade Next explored the system in Norway, and prompted articles like this one: Why Norway's prison system is so successful. Quote from that article: "... when criminals in Norway leave prison, they stay out. It has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. The US has one of the highest: 76.6% of prisoners are re-arrested within five years."
Being destructive to those who commit crimes is another crime, a crime committed by the government.
The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime lists other issues.
And now we'll just remove murder from the books because, eh, we can't blame the perp because the victim had a weak heart. He should have had a better constitution. A *real* man would have walked it off, but no, the vic just gave up the ghost and corpsed. Poor evolution at fault, nothing to see. Book him for Malicious Pranking and give him community service. Next Case~!
To add another source for the attempted swat in Calgary.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada...
One has to wonder what would happen if he wound up facing a crown prosecutor in Calgary. I'm just curious how many charges he would be hit with under the Criminal Code of Canada.
I believe he would be busted if he tried doing either land air or sea to get into this country.
"Dumb kid", huh? Maybe he's just a "prankster" and doesn't deserve punishment.
On the other hand, maybe he's a grown adult, who knew that the point of SWATing was to terrify innocent people by putting them in fear for their lives.
You sound like the criminal arguing that since he only hired the hitman, he's not responsible for the murder.
You sound like the child that claim he didn't pull the cat's tail, he just held on while the cat did the pulling.
This asshole knew that he was putting people at risk of death. He chose to perform the act anyway. It was a deliberate reckless and dangerous act, and his choice to perform that act got someone killed. Any reasonable person would understand that there was a risk.
It's just too bad that law enforcement doesn't take SWATing seriously, and is stuck trying to fit other law to this crime.
He didn't pull the trigger. He's getting 11 years for what is essentially a prank phone call.
There was no way that he could know someone would get shot.
Yeah, because swatting didn't exist before his call and nobody every got shot being swatted, right?
Newsflash: People got shot before because of this kind of 'prank phone call'. And a guy like him would know about those cases.
So yes, he could have known and should have known that someone could get shot. And I hope the prosecution will be able to prove it so that he'll get what he deserves.
why isn't the SWAT team in jail as well? they killed an unarmed man for no reason.
this is same mentality as a bad movie gun standoff with badguy holding gun to the hostages head saying do as i say or its on you if she dies.
Then he shoots her and the other guy go to prison? such a sick system you have there..
The caller was the murderer and the police were his weapon, just as if he had hired a hit man.
If police are just a weapon, then we should get rid of them. Police should be thinking professionals who protect the public, not shoot the public because someone on the phone told them to. They should know what swatting is, act accordingly. At least that is how I think I should be spending my tax dollars.
What the fuck is wrong with you? you seriously think that someone that intentionally endangers peoples lives to the point they are killed doesn't deserve to be charged? this cunt is getting off way to light with manslaughter, you never point a gun at anyone as the consequences can be serious, this cunt pointed a whole SWAT team of guns at someone MULTIPLE times, eventually someone was going to die and it is HIS FAULT. He should be on trial for murder not manslaughter.
What if there actually HAD been a genuine hostage situation, but in the chaos of the 911 call the wrong address was given (you can read several accounts of this happening in real life). NOW would you agree the SWAT team at fault? Just why does it make any difference in either situation? Law enforcement should be trained to rationally access the situation in the field and respond accordingly. These bozos would have gunned down Mr. Rogers as he zipped up his sweater...
If police are just a weapon, then we should get rid of them.
But... second amendment!
Seriously, nobody said the police are just a weapon. Where I live, we had two car attacks last year resulting in seven deaths, but nobody would claim that a car is just a weapon.
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Who did the killing? Who pulled the trigger? Who went in to a situation without any assessment? Whats the job of the SWAT team? Kill on site?
"Barriss has also been charged in Calgary with public mischief, fraud and mischief for another false phone call, police said, though it's unlikely he'll ever be arrested unless he enters the country."
What, Canada just can't extradite him? USA does it all the time!
now lets hope he gets raped in prison and catches aids
Enough Said
Knowing that SWAT teams sometimes kill people, and sometimes kill accidentally, and repeatedly sending SWAT teams to people's houses... then you knew there was a non-zero chance of someone dying.
This guy should be beaten the death.
The fucking cop did. He's the murderer. Charge him!
Say I was legally carrying a gun at that 7-11, and the clerk said "help this robber is going to shoot me!". If he was actually holding a gun on the clerk at that point and I shot him, I wouldn't get charged. If I summarily executed him without bothering to even look and it turned out he was not in fact holding a gun on anyone, I'd be locked up for decades. That's more along the lines of what happened here. To 'accidentally hit a bystander', there must be a legitimate target being shot at. There was no valid target until they verified the man was an active threat.
Involuntary manslaughter is an appropriate charge for the swatter, then ALSO the appropriate charge for the shooting officer is Murder 2.
but it'd also be nice if our cops weren't so eager to fucking kill people at the drop of a hat.
i could live a little longer in this prison
I never intended for anyone to get shot and killed.
Just to waste tax dollars (sending the police nowhere).
And to waste police time, potentially diverting them from an actual emergency where some unintended victim might die.
I refuse to sign
Still a better place than your country (Russia)
Filet the libcom perp to a Utah gulag and stick a hot poker up-his-ass every morning for the next 10 years ... or however long he lasts. That of-course leaves him alive , no just vengeance there , but OTOH it sets a clear message for the gamrboi parasites ... watch yo back weinerdude cause you're chop-ham !
Actions have consequences and this guy will finally need to take responsibility for them.
you'd probably shit your pants and end up shooting 4 toddlers if you were given a gun and told you were tasked with saving hostages in a building with someone who took people hostage at gunpoint. swat have to act on sub-second indicators, if they choose wrong, people die. that happens occasionally. this guy calling the swat should be hung as an example to others to not needlessly endager others and waste tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. you do realize he'd done this hundreds of previous times, right??
people used to be hung for far less. he should be made an example of. he's obviously a negative impact on society in just about every way possible.
Who did the killing?
The bullet.
Who pulled the trigger?
Irrelevant. The cop is not responsible for the bullet's inertia. As long as Newton is free to run around, his physics will be responsible for a lot more deaths like that.
That's the kind of logic we are talking about here.
their job is to save innocent people in the house, full stop. if they suspect someone is armed and could kill them or others, they have full right to defend themselves and protect others using lethal force. and mistakes happen. this wouldn't have happened without the swatter's actions. he's a menace to society and should be put down permanently. how do you think swat is supposed to stop an armed kidnapper? with flowers? don't be a child. next time you get shot or threatened with a gun by a crackhead we should have your grandma respond to the situation with some chocolates. *rolleyes* you have so little understanding of how the world works, it hurts. you should turn off youtube teletubbies garbage and watch some liveleak.
says a ignorant american that dont even own a passport and voted for trump.
on how the person in his own home was killed by the police. Encounters with police in America are too often fatal. The rules of engagement needs to be changed to reduce the risk of killing civilians.
1. Chief of police should resign. 2. The supervisor who hired the shooter and/or is/was in charge of training should be demoted or fired 3. The shooter needs to be charged with manslaughter. Obviously many factors played into the final outcome of an innocent man being killed. If this was any other circumstance (not the police), most of the above would happen. We as a society should not tolerate this behaviour. Police themselves should aspire to a higher standard. They should not tolerate the current state of affairs.
Tyler Barriss is an a$$h@t that should be segregated from society.
However, by the DA not charging the officer, Tyler Barriss' attorney is going to put the officer on the stand and ask some really simple questions: 1) Are you the person that shot and killed the victim? 2) Have you been charged with any crimes related to this event? He only needs one juror to think that this is not right.
Say I was legally carrying a gun at that 7-11, and the clerk said "help this robber is going to shoot me!". If he was actually holding a gun on the clerk at that point and I shot him, I wouldn't get charged. If I summarily executed him without bothering to even look and it turned out he was not in fact holding a gun on anyone, I'd be locked up for decades. That's more along the lines of what happened here.
What if it was a replica gun that couldn't actually shoot anyone? What if he was wearing a ski mask and pointing something at the clerk but your view was obstructed? What if you by some strange mistake you had wandered into a film recording or training exercise? The threat doesn't have to be real, if:
1. It would seem real to a reasonable person
2. You acted in good faith to save the clerk's life
3. The response appeared necessary both in terms of force and urgency
then I'd acquit you no matter what the real truth was. It's that last part that is most in question here, even if the cop that shot thought that he was hiding something that might have been a gun, was that a necessary response? If it had been a dark back alley one-on-one probably. A guy in the open on his front porch, spotlight in face, facing a small army in full battle gear? It's excessive.
We had a court case here in Norway not that long ago, brief summary is guy catches prep raping his drunk girlfriend, beats him up, drags him out onto the street and continues to beat the shit out of him. The court held that the first part was valid self defense, but after the assailant was outside and incapacitated the remaining beating he took was vigilante justice not self defense.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, this is not a good analogy. Swatting was recognized as a prank before this incident. And intent matters. With the amount of people texting while driving, there's gonna be a lot of murderers out there if we start changing the mentality towards the definition of murder.
It would also be one hell of a which hunt to get rid of all the celebrity murderers too.
Throwing rocks from an overpass is just prank, no one intends to kill a father of 3 driving on the freeway below. Does their intent matter when their rock crashes throw the windshield and devastates the man's skull?
A drunk driver never has the intent to kill a family vacationing at Disney World, but does his intent matter when he does?
You seriously need to rethink how you analyze things in this world.
1. hostage situation reported
2. reported shots fired
3. reported possible fatality
4. was victim a person of color?
5. police are human with desire to go home uninjured at shifts end
What did you think would happen?
bad things happen.
has probably removed themselves from 4chan via the hours and hours of shit posting to 4chan.
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What colour is this Barriss. You can guess even by the name.
Seems pretty straight-forward to me.... Accessory before the fact.
Where is Robocop and his prime directives when we need him the most?
1. Serve the public trust.
2. Protect the innocent.
3. Uphold the law.
...is if off-duty police officers get killed at home due to SWATting.
So one week for every swatting he's done plus a month for manslaughter. Talk about a slap on the wrist...
The ends do not justify the means.
Meaning killing an innocent unarmed person so you FEEL safer is not justified.
"What if there actually HAD been a genuine hostage situation"
Then calling in the incident wouldn't have been a felony. And the callers intent wasn't to send a team of amped up armed police into a situation that didn't exist.
"Just why does it make any difference in either situation?"
Because the intent of the peole involved always matters.
"NOW would you agree the SWAT team at fault?"
I never suggested the SWAT wasn't at fault. In your scenario they'd be soley at fault. In the actual scenario both are at fault.
If I were redesigning the school system, the four major food groups would be reading, writing, arithmetic, and intent is never obvious (keep your head up, and your eyes on a swivel on social media, boys and girls).
You aren't at the mercy of your emotions — your brain creates them — December 2017
She's accurately portraying real research, although I don't even like this talk, because she's skating over necessary context in an unhelpful way.
I read a book recently with the title Do No Harm (2014) by Henry Marsh where he devotes half the book to the admission that without the rituals of patient depersonalization, some of the unbelievably desperate and risky procedures would be impossible to perform for any normal person (though a beneficent sociopath—these really do exist—might find a way—including some already in the profession).
This giant farce where the jury stares at the face of a person in a strange, threatening situation, under extreme stress, a person that the jury hardly knows (and has never witnessed interacting in a less artificial context) is strictly for the birds: the birds of not having to take too personally whatever harsh (possibly fatal) judgment the jury decides to hand down.
Some rituals are more for the surgeon than the patient; more for the jury than the accused; more for the police than the perpetrator.
What makes Lisa Feldman Barrett's talk irritating is that she never even mentions FACS.
So you watch the talks given by the people who either a) are world class at actually doing this; or b) are in the business of imparting some dangerous modicum of this skill to law enforcement professional and to the last man and woman a full one third of the talk is the long road from salient observation to supportable interpretation.
There's this thing called mental multitasking, and to judge from 90% of their students, most of the world has never heard of this.
The salient facial micro-twitches can arise from any thought or emotion passing through the other person's head. But no, 100 people surveyed, 99 people are cock sure that the other person's fleeting facial twitch is all about their own narcissistic central concern of the moment.
The experts require a cluster of three to five twitches each in close proximity to the same stress point (which is why police interrogation done correctly involves more circling around than cleaning up after a fender bender on the main runway).
The biology of our best and worst selves — April 2017
"Involuntary manslaughter is an appropriate charge for the swatter"
I tend to agree that does seem appropropriate. And for the purposes of sentencing, as aggravating factors I'd note the lack of real remorse, and the fact that he has done this several times.
"ALSO the appropriate charge for the shooting officer is Murder 2."
Based on my understanding of the facts I'd argue for a charge of voluntary manslaughter.
Treat him as such.
> And that would not be a worse outcome than a dead innocent non-police.
Yes, it would, because we don't have the ability to hire that many heroic saints as police, much as I wish we did. And you guys only make it worse by hating on them and assuming the worst every time one of them screws up. It's funny how I want nobody dead, whereas you want dead cops. I can't think of any good reasons to want that, you know.
That said, by all means, feel free to volunteer yourself to walk a beat. But you might want to watch this first to see the reality of things. Yes, I do think the cop in this case screwed up big time during this SWAT, but I'm not going to start making assumptions about all cops due to that, any more than I'm going to start making assumptions about all black people when some black person gets arrested. Rather, I would look at their tactics, rules of engagement and the use of force guidelines they were operating under to look at untangling the chain of causes that led to this, rather than putting all focus on one hapless officer.
If you think they're always this trigger happy, well, maybe you should watch this to see exactly what is going on.
Just put him in a cell block with a bunch of large black gangbangers, or a bunch of white supremacists. Then tell them he molested little kids while calling in fake police complaints.
The problem will solve itself in under a week.
This is just crazy. who takes the time to write such screeds?
As a guy who did his EMT training in '92, let me give you a giant fuck you, buddy.
It has never been an EMT's job to put themselves in harm's way for a patient, and in fact, we were specifically trained to not do that. Job number one is to ensure the safety of the area before going in, otherwise we're at grave risk of being taken out by whatever's already critically injured at least one person. Adding one more to the casualty count solves nothing: it just means you need another ambulance.
If there's a downed power line draped over your car and you're unconscious behind the wheel, well, sorry, but you're going to be waiting there until either the power company or the firefighters tell me the scene's electrically safe.
"Emergency medical personnel used to be expected to put themselves in harm's way to protect people." You've clearly been watching way too much Hollywood.
Asked about the call, Barriss acknowledged that "It hasn't just affected my life, it's affected someone's family too. Someone lost their life. I understand the magnitude of what happened. It's not just affecting me because I'm sitting in jail. I know who it has affected. I understand all of that."
Then ditch the lawyer, plead guilty, and ask the judge for mercy. Maybe they will be more merciful than the police that were sent.
If you rob a 7-11 at gun point, and the clerk pulls a gun in self defense and accidently shoots a bystander, not only might you get charged with murder the clerk might not be.
The rule that allows the robber to be charged with murder in that circumstance (a version of the felony murder rule) is pretty controversial though - many have argued it is wrong as e.g. it allowed for the conviction of Ryan Holle. It is controversial enough that it has been repealed in many jurisdictions. I'm also not sure it's applicable here as I don't think falsely calling 911 would usually be classed as a felony.
"He didn't pull the trigger."
So fucking what? What's next? You'll be telling me that mafia bosses who send thugs to intimidate people aren't responsible for any injuries or deaths that result...
The problem with that logic (mafia bosses ordering killings) is that it is a different standard of intent - the mafia boss intended the victim to be killed or suffer very serious harm and should have reasonably foreseen that his instructions might be interpreted that way. Here you'd have to argue "reckless indifference" to whether the victim was killed or seriously injured. In turn that means the prosecution would have to make an argument that an innocent person dying is a "reasonably foreseeable" consequence of the police turning up anywhere (e.g. wrong house, etc etc). The defence would then presumably dig up the training the police have which includes a lot of "don't kill innocent people". And in the mean time, the government may have opened the police up to civil litigation on a grand scale as it is effectively admitting liability.
Sorry, that should have said falsely calling 911 would not usually be classed as a "dangerous felony", not just a "felony".
RoboCop was pretty liberal with his use of force. Given that the vast majority of shootings by police are against people who used force against the officer, very little would change if you replaced the entire force with RoboCop copies. Out of something like 1,500 deaths per year, you might prevent 10-15.
On the bright side you would also prevent 40+ police deaths, so that's good ...
1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion"; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life.
Fits perfectly. Heat of passion is more walking in on a dude boinking your wife, not when you're wearing body armor behind cover with a team of 20 surrounding one man who's complying with your orders and you suddenly think he might somehow be reaching for a gun you don't know exists, as a member of an elite highly trained unit specializing in such scenarios.
The manslaughter charge is actually under charging the swatting perpetrator. A more reasonable charge would be negligent homicide or Murder 2. If suicide by cop is a thing, swatting is essentially murder by cop or attempted murder, depending. It is equivalent in culpability to putting on a blindfold and firing into a crowded street. You are not trying to kill anyone by aiming at them, but by taking those actions, any reasonable person can assume that someone is likely to be killed. Much like a gun, police officers responding to active shooter/hostage situations can be counted on to act a specific way, and like a gun they are deadly in their intent.
Manslaughter is more along the lines of a bar fight where you are both equally responsible for starting the altercation, but the other guy has a bad heart and dies during the fight. You didn't mean to kill the guy and his death was not an expected outcome of some drunken fisticuffs.
Cops are trained to behave a certain way when responding to a violent felony/murder/hostage situation. They are keyed up expecting to be facing an armed person who just killed an innocent victim and is likely to do so again at a moments notice. They are still imperfect humans that make mistakes of a fraction of a second, and the fact that an innocent person was killed in this case is a tragedy that that police officer will have to live with for the rest of his life.
All the pinheads saying the cop is a murderer need to look up the definition of murder, namely, that the perpetrator needs malicious intent specifically against the victim. The cop who fatally shot the victim never laid eyes on him before that moment and by definition harbored no ill will against him, it was the victims bad luck that he made some sudden move, innocent though it may have actually been, that caused the officer to shoot, expecting to protect innocent lives and/or his fellow officers from what he understood to be an armed murderer.
I hope the swatting perpetrator gets a very public trial and gets the maximum sentence as well as a civil suit that takes every penny he ever makes. Swatting as a practice needs to be severely punished and treated as attempted murder with every incident and investigated both locally and by the FBI. A few more cases like this and we might actually get some investment in proper infrastructure that eliminates spoofing caller IDs (all emergency lines should be able to trace the call back to a house number, IP phones should either be blocked from emergency services, or require a credit card/drivers license pre-authentication to a physical address to access emergency numbers over VOIP). Sure, there will still be a few hundred people on the planet who can place emergency calls anonymously, but no system is perfect, the perpetrator in this case certainly is no hacking genius.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Two points:
1. If you ever have someone threatening to swat you, don't give them any address and immediately call your local police yourself to report it as a threat of violence against your person. They can often find the twit with a few screenshots and a call to the company that hosts the servers you are playing on. If nothing else, it puts you on the radar of the police, and they will be less likely to come in guns ready if you do ever get swatted since your complaint will be tied to your physical address when the emergency operator pulls it up.
2. The police would not be doing their jobs if they don't respond to an active shooter/hostage situation with overwhelming force. They are catching hell for not getting to the Las Vegas shooter sooner. They knew where he was within a couple of minutes. Much of the carnage during the Columbine shooting happened because only a few officers were on scene at first, and they had to wait for more police to arrive before moving in. If they had responded en mass, the casualty count would have been lower. One or two cops going into an active shooter situation does no one any good because they don't know how many they are facing or where they are, so they need a team (a la SWAT team) to move in and clear all the corners and hide holes that a shooter could find concealment and then either escape or shoot them from behind.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
But... second amendment!
The courts have ruled that there is no second amendment right to be armed in your own home when the police pound on your door at unusual hours without reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a warrant.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the...
The recent Kansas case applies whether you are armed or not and it is not even the only murder by swatting incident this year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
The courts have ruled that there is no second amendment right to be armed in your own home when the police pound on your door at unusual hours without reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a warrant.
You might want to re-read the comment that I was responding to.
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Only in good old U.S. of A. a looser wasting police time is a bigger story than a SWAT officer committing a murder. :(
Sad world.
This isn't a commander in a war with his own private army. There is no hierarchical structure which obligates police to do exactly what you want. They can and should evaluate the situation themselves and verify evidence. A life shouldn't be taken when there is reasonable doubt that it's not justified. No excuse for the police here either. The guy they murdered didn't even have a chance to surrender. This is just terrible.
You forgot about Directive 4.
In the real world, he would never be able to erase Directive 4 and would always be a slave to the share.
Amazing how he suddenly acts like he has remorse and a moral conscience now that he's facing significant consequences. This is the same person who very publicly announced how hilarious it was the man died, how him swatting left no responsibility of the mans death on his shoulders, that he had a right to do such things because he was a 'leet untouchable hacker', that he was obligated to severely punish people playing a video game of all things if they slighted him. Over the course of several years he called in multiple swatting and bomb threats to private companies, public events, schools and more because it was 'fun'. The things he's saying now are purely in the hope of reducing the punishments he is about to receive. I hope no one is gullible enough to buy his charade.
'heat of passion' is just one criteria for voluntary manslaughter.
States sometimes also define voluntary manslaughter as a homicide that occurs with the mistaken belief that the killing was justified. For instance, if the defendant kills in self-defense, but was the original aggressor in the situation that led to the homicide, the state could potentially charge the killing as voluntary manslaughter. In addition, voluntary manslaughter can also encompass a homicide that occurs based on the defendant's honest but unreasonable belief that a situation requires deadly force.
http://criminal.findlaw.com/cr...
I think the latter in particular could be applied here.
I think we're in general agreement that the officer who shot the guy is criminally responsible for a homicide. As for the specific charge we think should be brought against the officer, I'm not going to argue with you further. 2nd degree murder might well be the correct charge.
The main argument I am interested in furthering is that the 'prank caller' is jointly responsible for this death.
Its an interesting question, if I falsely call 911 to report a heart attack as a prank. (ie I am not merely 'mistaken' about the heart attack, I am just doing it to send an ambulance to someone's house for lulz...)
What if the ambulance is involved in an accident and someone dies? You weren't driving the ambulance, but you are the reason the ambulance was in emergency response mode. It wouldn't have been running red lights, or driving in the oncoming lane, or doing all the things ambulances do to get to a site as quickly as possible. Granted the ambulance driver is trained, and is still responsible for getting there safely, but he is still taking an elevated level of risk on deliberately false pretenses. I do think you should take responsibility for that.
And that's just a heart attack; just an EMT response.
Even if you don't think that rises to the threshold of 'dangerous'...
When you call 911 with the deliberate intent to dispatch an armed SWAT response on false pretenses -- sending heavily armed emergency response police into a situation you have told them is extremely volatile, extremely dangerous, where people have already been shot... do you really think that doesn't rise to the level of 'dangerous'?
what about the person who gave the false address... any charges for him?
You crazy Americans. You declare a war on drugs. You allow your civilian population to possess military grade weapons. And then you are shocked that your police need a military grade response. Surely you can join the dots??? Or can you?
Disagree 1000% sending swat thats the whole problem here the cops are getting scammed/conned because they are too lazy too stupid to do any kind police work 1. the call was from a SPOOFED NUMBER ding ding ding ding. RED flags should be sounding, send a squad of 2 officers who get PAID to do just that PROTECT and SERVE. 2.Columbie was not called in with a SPOOFED NUMBER they are no anything alike. Fact is the cops are too busy trying to collect traffic tickets to fill county coffers to do the job they are paid to do. Sorry this really pisses me off oh how badly the cop handle crap anymore.
Jack of all trades,master of none
The caller was the murderer and the police were his weapon, just as if he had hired a hit man.
So the police is not guilty - because they were just the weapon? Just like a hit man - he's just the weapon so he can keep doing what he does best?
I don't think that with the current infrastructure EMS has the capability to determine if a number is being spoofed. This is part of the problem, not the fault of the police, but the politicians who are too busy buying votes will social programs to implement infrastructure upgrades that would make spoofing impossible, or at least alert EMS that the caller is spoofing the origination point.
Software engineers make on average $92k per year; how much risk to your life does your job pose? Officers get paid on average $55k. Would that be enough for you to put your ass in the line of fire for a stranger? No, it probably wouldn't...
There were officers at the scene pretty quickly, but not enough officers responded initially to safely enter and sweep the school. The Columbine massacre went on for almost an hour, where if police had breached and entered in the first few minutes, many lives would have been saved (this was one of the key findings incorporated into law enforcement by a fact finding committee, which is why these days they respond en mass to an active shooter threat and enter ASAFP in most cases, the most notable exception being the Las Vegas shooting).
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Often mistakes are made in prosecution. Do you agree you should be executed if you are found to have done something serious against the law? Or, does you thinking only apply to others?
"you thinking" should have been "your thinking".
Say I was legally carrying a gun at that 7-11, and the clerk said "help this robber is going to shoot me!". If he was actually holding a gun on the clerk at that point and I shot him, I wouldn't get charged.
That would depend very much on where you were. By one estimate I am far too lazy to track down just now, it costs an average of $10,000 in court for every bullet fired in anger by a civilian. (when coupled with magazine limits, this really promotes the ownership of high-caliber firearms in certain states, but that's another discussion.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No matter what you or i say we will never meet the minds and yes i would put my life on the line paid or unpaid. Stop making excuse for horrid police work. the Columbine example is a very very poor example as they were both very different cases not even close...and ya poor police work their as well. They CAN call for backup they DO carry walkie talkies that work for miles. so again go in take charge, call for back up IF needed which it was in Columbine case has they did. Had that happen at this swatter call, no one would have been killed at all.
Jack of all trades,master of none