Two Teenaged Gamers Plead 'Not Guilty' For Fatal Kansas Swatting Death (reuters.com)

Two more men entered pleas in federal court for their roles in a SWAT call that led to a fatal police shooting in Kansas: not guilty. An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Shane Gaskill, 19, of Wichita, Kansas, and Casey Viner, 18, from a suburb of Cincinnati, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday and remained free on $10,000 bond, court records showed. Both of the suspects live with their parents, local media reported. In the so-called "swatting" incident, in which someone falsely reports an emergency requiring a police response, Viner got upset at Gaskill over a video game they played online, federal prosecutors said, and Viner contacted a known "swatter"...and asked him to make the false report to police at an address that had been provided by Gaskill. Viner did not know that Gaskill no longer lived at the address, but Gaskill knew, prosecutors said.

After media reports of the shooting, Gaskill urged [swatter Tyler] Barriss to delete their communications and Viner wiped his phone, according to the indictment... Barriss and Viner face federal charges of conspiracy and several counts of wire fraud. Viner and Gaskill were charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, and Gaskill was also charged with wire fraud and additional counts of obstruction of justice.
In a jailhouse interview in January, Barriss told a local news team that "Whether you hang me from a tree, or you give me 5, 10, 15 years... I don't think it will ever justify what happened... I hope no one ever does it, ever again. I hope it's something that ceases to exist."

In April, while still in jail, Barriss gained access to the internet then posted "All right, now who was talking shit? >:) Your ass is about to get swatted."

Comments

Re: Stupid charge

[Anonymous Coward]

Cop in Orlando took s bullet to the face for not being trigger happy. There is no pleasing you people.

What the hell is wrong with our country

[rsilvergun]

when sending cops to somebody's home counts as attempted murder? Britain and Canada don't have this problem, btw. A bunch of Youtubers from those countries were genuinely confused by the concept of swatting. It just wouldn't work in their countries.

Yeah, these guys should get prosecuted. They knew what they were doing was dangerous. But I'm pissed off that the entire debate has been around how badly these guys should be punished. Besides a few libtards like me on /. bitching about it I've seen zero discussion about what got us to this point. Maybe if we wouldn't be so stupidly Tough on Crime folks wouldn't treat talking to the police like a death sentence.

Re: Stupid charge

[laurencetux]

This is a situation where actual justice would get messy

and no two wrongs do not make a right but

TWO WONGS MAKE IT WHITE!! (this week only 25% off all formal shirts)

there is a list of folks that should face charges

1 the police admin that set the default stance to SHOOT FIRST SHOOT OFTEN
2 the dispatcher that did not verify anything
3 the officers that went to the call
4 the swatter(s)

everybody on that list should do TIME for their actions and that police department should face a massive Civil Suit (judgment taken out of the police pension fund).

Re: Execute Barriss

[guruevi]

The problem is that most law enforcement aren't trained to handle hostage situations and unless you deal with it every day there is no way you can get someone good in every precinct.

Law enforcement shows up like that because in inner city neighborhoods criminals are better armed than the average beat cop.

When you have people walking around with armor penetrating rounds and automatic assault weapons, police need to respond with armored trucks or they'll get mowed down.

The war on drugs is a real war with weapon races and extensive research and development on both sides. Between the cartels, assisted housing drug dealers, BLM and Antifa all deploying guerrila style attacks on police this effect only accelerates. You can occasionally find YouTube movies where inner city assisted housing drug dealers will call in fake 911 and ambush police as revenge for arrests.