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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.
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.
It's still obviously much more the police's fault than his.
Hogwash. The responsibility for this man's death lies solely with the criminal who made the call. It's called proximate cause.
But for his phone call, the police would never have gone to the residence and interacted with the man.
This murder lies solely with the criminal whose panties got in an uproar and who thought he'd be tricky and get back at the guy. Congratulations, he played himself.
Well, if you point a gun at someone, then pull the trigger, that is premeditation. So the issue is not murder or manslaughter, I would have thought. The policeman would claim to be operating in the course of protecting someones life (including his own).
All the discussions here seem to be whose fault it was. Clearly, the caller has some responsibility, and also the police. But, at the same time, there has to be the issue of the gun obsessed violent society. Always easy to pass the blame on to other people.
>Swatting was recognized as a prank before this incident.
Yeah, and so is throwing large rocks off of overpasses onto traffic. But the bastards that do shit like that need to die too.
The fact that you are stupid doesn't make it not murder.
No, this is not a good analogy. Swatting was recognized as a prank before this incident. And intent matters.
Anyone who has ever thought of swatting as a prank is an idiot who should be removed from the gene pool.
Intent matters you say? The intent of swatting is to send an armed force to someone's house, believing they may have to kill someone. Swatting needs to be stomped down on hard. Ruin some lives. Make an example of them. Make others think "Hmm, maybe I should just stick to posting shit on 4chan."
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
It's called proximate cause
Only in a Civil case.
The responsibility for this man's death lies solely with the criminal who made the call.
Obviously not..... there's something wrong here, that a random person anywhere in the world can make a caller-id spoofed VoIP call to a police department anywhere in the US: impersonate the addressee/target, conjure up a pretend emergency, and incite sufficient panic that the police go on a shooting spree and kill people.
How about: The simplified proximate CAUSE of the death is unreasonable actions by the police, which the SWATter could not have entirely anticipated, But the police in this situation Violated their Duty to serve and protect the public and killed innocent people. What about that? Where are the consequences for that, for the officers' gross misconduct?
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.
Unfortunately, the "overwhelming majority" is overwhelmingly likely to cover up for the bad apples.
My cure for the "blue wall" problem would be to take police malpractice judgements directly out of the police retirement fund, rather than the city's general fund. Good officers would then rush to turn in the bad apples.