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Two More Gamers May Be Charged in Fatal Kansas 'SWAT' Shooting (kansas.com)
A newly-released affidavit reveals that money was at stake in a game of Call Of Duty: World War II which led to the fatal real-life police shooting of Andrew Finch. The Wichita Eagle reports:
Investigators learned that Shane Gaskill, who lives in Wichita, was involved in an online video game with other people when he accidentally [virtually] shot and killed one of his teammates in the online game. The teammate who was killed in the game became "extremely upset" and began talking trash to Gaskill, the affidavit says. The dispute escalated until the teammate, who the document identifies as Casey Viner of North College Hill, Ohio, threatened via Twitter to "SWATT" Gaskill, according to the affidavit. Gaskill replied, "Please try some s---." He then posted the address...
Viner "is considered a suspect in several 'swatting' incidents in Cincinnati," reports the Los Angeles Times, adding that prosecutors are still deciding whether these two gamers should also face criminal charges.
Meanwhile, Kansas officials have been informed that the third gamer who actually made the phone call, 25-year-old Tyler Barriss, matches the voice on a fake 2015 bomb threat, and is already the subject of an open investigation by an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Viner "is considered a suspect in several 'swatting' incidents in Cincinnati," reports the Los Angeles Times, adding that prosecutors are still deciding whether these two gamers should also face criminal charges.
Meanwhile, Kansas officials have been informed that the third gamer who actually made the phone call, 25-year-old Tyler Barriss, matches the voice on a fake 2015 bomb threat, and is already the subject of an open investigation by an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The three reasons that anyone keeps getting SWAT teams sent to them are the following three factors that must be addressed:
1. Caller ID - it's broken. Unauthenticated caller ID and caller ID spoofing should be treated as a crime since scam artists continue to take over unprotected VoIP gateways. Nothing should be connected to the PSTN without a certificate issued by the PSTN provider, period. This way there's at least some traceability and requires someone to have come on premises or seriously violated the chain of trust far beyond the skiddie level that these little bastards engage in.
2. Police attitudes - militarization of police is rampant with surplus war equipment like MRAPS, Hollywood movie style takedowns and insufficiently-vetted police officers with mental stability issues. Some modicum of rational assessment of a situation without automatically deploying people is necessary. Laser listening devices on windows, drones, or maybe just walking up to the door. It can't be break in, throw flashbangs and yell like a lunatic getting the innocent occupants to play Simon says until they can't comply and someone innocent gets shot any more.
3. Punishment - this one is simple. You SWAT, you get twenty years for each instance consecutive. Someone dies because of a swatting, you're guilty of murder and you get life imprisonment. But wait, you say you have some kind of mental disability? Well no problem, you'll just be committed to a mental facility until your condition is eliminated without drugs. Oh, and are you a provider of a gateway to the PSTN or other services that connect to police and don't work to get this done? You lose your license to operate.
So many people, including myself, are tired of this nonsense. Legislators, law enforcement and telecom companies need to start working together to prevent these things. Otherwise I say they should all be held complicit along with the perpetrators of SWAT incidents in the crimes. It is sheer lunacy that this hasn't been addressed at multiple levels yet.
This shit called spoofing numbers needs to be fixed.