Gamers Behind Fatal 'SWAT' Call Now Face Life In Prison (wlwt.com)

An anonymous reader writes: 18-year-old Casey Viner, who instigated the 911 call which led to a fatal shooting in Wichita (hiring Tyler Barriss to perform the actual call), is in big trouble. "If convicted on the 10 counts he faces, Viner could spend almost the rest of his life in prison and pay a $1,000,000 fine," reports a local Cincinnati news site. Ironically, Viner's father is a corporal with the county sheriff's department.

The 19-year-old intended target for the SWAT attack had supplied a real address in Wichita for a house where he used to live. But in an eerie coincidence, ten days before the fatal shooting in Wichita, Cincinnati police had responded to a similar SWAT call which had sent them to a house where Viner used to live. The local police said "the facts and circumstances and the verbiage were very, very similar."
25-year-old Tyler Barriss also faces a life sentence for false information which resulted in a death -- as well as several local charges. And Thursday a federal grand jury also indicted Barriss "for a threat that caused an evacuation of a high-profile FCC hearing" into net neutrality regulations just two weeks before the fatal Wichita shooting, "and another threat eight days later that targeted FBI headquarters."

Barriss's lawyer insists that his client wasn't responsible for the Wichita death, blaming instead a "gung-ho, crazy cop."

Comments

Re:No punishment too severe

[dgatwood]

This was an incredibly stupid thing to do but there was no intention on the part of the SWATTERS to cause a death.

I'm not so sure. The lack of remorse tells me that at the very least, they didn't care if they caused a death, and they took an action that they knew or reasonably should have known could have directly caused a death. It's like picking up a gun, pointing it at someone, and pulling the trigger, then claiming that because you didn't know if the gun was loaded, it should be treated as an accident. Unless you're a five-year-old, that argument doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Unfortunately, many states still treat depraved indifference to human life as manslaughter. In many states, this would be second-degree murder, and you might even be able to argue for first. Either way, a life sentence is entirely appropriate, IMO.