Jailed Kansas 'Swat' Perpetrator Sneaks Online, Threatens More 'Swats' (kansas.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Wichita Eagle: Tyler Barriss -- the man charged in a swatting hoax that led to the death of an innocent Wichita man -- apparently got access to the internet from jail for at least 28 minutes [last] Friday and threatened to swat again. "How am I on the Internet if I'm in jail? Oh, because I'm an eGod, that's how," a tweet posted at 9:05 a.m. said.
Other developments in the case:

• Another tweet from the Barriss account 19 minutes later asked who was "talking shit," warning "your ass is about to get swatted." And nine minutes later his final tweet from jail bragged, "Y'all should see how much swag I got in here." The county sheriff's office blamed an outside vendor's improper software upgrade to an inmate kiosk, arguing that 14 inmates potentially had full internet access "for less than a few hours."

• 25-year-old Barris is still in jail facing an 11-year prison sentence, noted a Twitter user who responded to the tweets. "This will play well at sentencing when you're pretending to be remorseful and asking the judge for mercy."

• Meanwhile, the Wichita police officer who mistakenly fired the fatal shot that killed a 28-year-old father of two will not face charges. The district attorney concluded that several of the officers closest to victim Andrew Finch thought he reached down to pull up his pants, leaving his right arm hidden from the officers, the Wichita Eagle reports. "The officer who fired the shot, along with some others, thought Finch was reaching for a gun."

• "This shooting should not have happened," said the district attorney. "But this officer's decision was made in the context of the false call." Finch was shot 10 seconds after opening his front door, and his family's civil case against the police department is still going forward.

• Two other gamers involved in the shooting -- including one who allegedly hired Barriss over a $1.50 bet in the game Call of Duty -- have not been charged with a crime.

Comments

Cops investigating themselves

[HangingChad]

When cops investigate themselves it's always justified.

Re:Cops investigating themselves

[msauve]

"The officer who fired the shot, along with some others, thought Finch was reaching for a gun."

Yep. Not possible. You can't reach for a gun when there is no gun. Use of deadly force is only justified when there is a reasonable belief of a significant threat. Without seeing a weapon, the belief is unreasonable. The officer should be in prison for manslaughter.

Re:Cops investigating themselves

[sphealey]

What has absolutely nothing to do with the legality of the actions taken by the person who called police units armed for deadly force and falsely claimed that there was a hostage situation in progress. That person is responsible for his own actions and if his actions directly resulted in death or injury he is legally responsible for those under various criminal and civil laws as well.

Re:Cops investigating themselves

[msauve]

Nope. They might with equal (un)reasonableness claim they thought he was reaching for a Beanie Baby. Every time you see someone putting a hand in their pocket, do you think they're going for a gun? If so, you're unreasonably paranoid. It's unreasonable because there was no evidence of a gun, and any assumption there might have been one was unsupported by facts, which are the basis of reason.

Really?

[DewDude]

My question is how has this person not violated Twitter's TOS and had his account suspended? The fact it wasn't disabled in the first place is as mind-boggling as how he was able to access it from jail. But hopefully this incident will be brought up at his trial so the judge can see how little remorse he has and that any remorsefulness shown in court is just perjury.

Re: Really?

[haruchai]

"Swatting is attempted murder. It's time we treated it as such"

And if someone who's unarmed is shot, the cops should be charged, too.
http://www.kansas.com/news/loc...

Unless there's a video....

[Anonymous Coward]

of the actual shooting, not of cops standing around with their weapons drawn like posted, I'll have to assume the cops are lying.

  Because they are saying that with their weapons drawn, they are afraid that someone is fast enough to draw a gun from behind themselves and take them out?

Seriously?

No matter how you slice it, the cops overreacted.

Any signs of changing the way police operates?

[JaredOfEuropa]

"This shooting should not have happened," said the district attorney. "But this officer's decision was made in the context of the false call."

So not prosecuting the officer is probably the right decision, especially since he was (presumably) acting they way the department's training and guidelines suggest he should. But it seems to me that this death, and many others, indicate that those instructions are in serious need of an overhaul. And that in most cases officers need to wait and return fire rather than shoot first and answer any questions later. That puts them at risk, yes, but that's their damn job: to protect the public. And as long as the guy who got swatted didn't offer any violence and until there was crystal clear proof that he was about to get violent, he was not a criminal, not a "perp", but a member of the public. And his life should have come first.

Re: Any signs of changing the way police operates?

[Nidi62]

There should be no more "I thought I saw a gun" shootings. They should not fire until they positively identify the subject is holding a gun. A knife? Then tasers only. You have body armor, you chose to be a cop. Your duty is to make sure other people go home safe before you do.

Re: Any signs of changing the way police operates?

[Uberbah]

So what? Even if that's true and not something you made up on the spot, you manage the exceptions, not manage to the exception. And how well would your superman be doing with a face full of mace on top of being tasered multiple times.

Policies based on rarest pie-in-the-sky anecdotes are shitty policies.

Fucking SWAT team

[lsllll]

Meanwhile, the Wichita police officer who mistakenly fired the fatal shot that killed a 28-year-old father of two will not face charges. The district attorney concluded that several of the officers closest to victim Andrew Finch thought he reached down to pull up his pants, leaving his right arm hidden from the officers, the Wichita Eagle reports. "The officer who fired the shot, along with some others, thought Finch was reaching for a gun."

You are in a SWAT team. You have been trained for a gunfight. You're there, along with 20 of your buddies, ALL of your weapons drawn and in your hand and pointing to the guy who just walked out of his house and is clueless of WTF is happening. All you need to do is pull a trigger one or more times to take him down. "I thought he was reaching for a gun" is not a good defense. Wait until you actually SEE a fucking gun before you shoot the poor bastard. I can't believe he's not going to face charges for a reckless murder.

Re:Fucking SWAT team

[Uberbah]

What if he was following his training perfectly?

I don't know about you, but when I had firearms safety training when I was six, one of the cardinal rules drilled into my head was "always be sure of what you are shooting at". This murderer obviously didn't as the man had no gun. If grown assed trainers aren't teaching remedial safety to cops, they should join them in prison for criminal negligence.

Re:Fucking SWAT team

[Graymalkin]

In most cities the term "SWAT team" is waaaaay too broadly applied. When people hear "SWAT" they tend to think of a highly trained team of specialists with pinpoint marksmanship, nerves of steel, and balls (or ovaries) of solid brass.

The reality is most "SWAT" teams are regular patrolmen assigned to SWAT duty as part of their career path. They aren't best of the best volunteers but trying to get promoted. Smaller cities can't afford grueling training so their SWAT terms get maybe a dozen training hours a month and those officers have regular patrol beats.

So when SWAT responds to a call there's a good chance you're getting a bunch of operators with better than average but definitely not Delta levels of training that may have just come off a full patrol shift. The typical SWAT team has far less training than you'd probably want or expect them to have.

Re:Fucking SWAT team

[lsllll]

You miss the point. Even if he DID have a gun in his pocket, even if he reached for it, 20 cops with their guns drawn and pointed at him should not be shooting until they have 100% positive proof that he has a gun via a visual. They have the element of time on their side, the time it takes to take a gun out of a pocket, raise it, and shoot. Plus they're not supposed to hurt innocent civilians, so wouldn't you think they should err on the side of caution? After all, they swore to put their own lives (and their bullet-proof vests) on the line.

DA's need to be banned from police investigations

[Uberbah]

The district attorney concluded that several of the officers closest to victim Andrew Finch thought he reached down to pull up his pants, leaving his right arm hidden from the officers, the Wichita Eagle reports. "The officer who fired the shot, along with some others, thought Finch was reaching for a gun."

Yet it wasn't the cops next to the guy who made the kill shot, it was one at distance, so this is bullshit on its face. DA's need to be banned from from investigating cops in their own jurisdiction as they work with said cops as part of their day job. The DOJ should go after cops for civil rights violations when local prosecutors drop the ball, like when they sent some of the officers who beat Rodney King to prison.

And very little talk on the root cause.

[malkavian]

So, loads of comments about "how cops are bad", but very little on the responsibility of the root cause that started this chain of events.
A guy deliberately set up an armed response team to an address. From this point, the amount off things that can go badly wrong is staggering, not to mention the cost of performing the action itself in monetary terrms.
In this case, something did go wrong, that would not have happened if the false callout had not been made. Everything stems from that malicious callout, therefore, everything that went wrong should be put on the shoulders of the malicious caller.
The caller should be tried for "attempted murder" if a malicious swatting is made, or at least assault with a deadly weapon (as that's what SWAT teams carry, and it's definitely an assault if done maliciously).
It's very easy to point a finger at a cop and say "Your fault", but unless you do the job, day in, day out, with your life at risk, and nearly every situation you face is life or death, then I take the voices as 'armchair experience'. Yes, training can always be improved, yes, odds can be shrunk, but in situations like this, risk cannot be eliminated. Thus you go for the root cause. Make the malicious caller responsible for all costs, all outcomes, and at least that assault with deadly weapon to boot. Every, single, malicious, call.
Maybe then we'll see swattings "for fun" vanish. As long as people treat it as "just a kicks thing that went wrong", it'll keep on happening, and more deaths will ensue because of it.

Re:Sorry?

[Locke2005]

Making it obvious to jail staff that your prison privileges MUST be severely restricted for the rest of your stay seem pretty self-destructive to me. This guy needs to ask himself, "Was it worth it?"

Re:Sorry?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Even more self-destructive: making it obvious to your fellow inmates that their privileges are now severely restricted on account of your dumb stunt.