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.

Comments

the (actual) shooter

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the guy who committed the [real] murder on an unarmed man going to be charged? Or is that workplace mistake?

Re:the (actual) shooter

[sandbagger]

Would shooting someone who may have been a hostage without taking the time to find out who he was constitute gross misconduct?

Re:the (actual) shooter

[Anonymous Coward]

The perp did not comply and did assume a threatening posture.

Given the SWAT team member was already aimed at the perp with his gun and literally only had to pull the trigger, I'd wait until the perp went form "threatening posture" to "actually has a gun out and was aiming it at someone" before pullng the trigger. Or, in the case that it's difficult/impossible to determine if he's got a gun (which implies a handgun or the like and he's not spending the several seconds to carefully line it up properly in front of him), wait until he actually fires because, oddly enough, given that everyone is several hundred feet away, there was about zero chance that any of the officers were seriously threatened even if he managed to fire several shots.

Now let's change the scenario a little and have two armed police officers who were actually near the door who could have, you know, arrested him without guns being their only real option. Oh, right, can't change the situation. We have to presume SWAT was the rational answer and their approach right up to the bullet coming out of the gun was rational. Couldn't just be that a person coming out of a house with a bright light flashing in his eyes would, in a few seconds, not be 100% cooperative. We also know that everyone has guns in their waistband.

*sigh* It's hard to argue simultaneously that SWATing is dangerous because there's a serious risk of death and that SWAT teams are actually a reasonable police force tool and not simple accidental death waiting to happen. If that's all SWAT is, then SWAT should be dismantled because there's something seriously wrong in having a whole police unit which by its nature will not deal with all the accidental deaths it causes regularly.

Caller ID, police attitudes, and punishment

[StandardCell]

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.

Re: the (actual) shooter and hillary for prison

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh bullshit. There's not a friggin' twenty year old who doesn't know SWATTing is a terrible thing. None except psychopaths like these people.

As for "brain does not solidify until the early 20's". Again, bullshit. You are very purposefully conflating two very, very different things; the course of brain patterns and fucking intelligence and morals.

It's telling that you think a twenty year old is a child. Besides, the bastard was twenty-five. Outside your fake protective shield.

Re:You miss the point...

[drinkypoo]

The officer was responding as part of his job, how he handled it is a separate part of this fucked up situation.

The only final, irrevocable, irreparable act in the entire situation is the officer aiming his weapon at the victim and pulling the trigger. This was the ultimate go/no-go, life or death decision, and it was made incorrectly. If we are not going to hold the shooter responsible, we might as well just send a robot to execute every suspect. The human is there to not pull the trigger.