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Kansas 'Swat' Perpetrator Will Now Plead Guilty To Dozens More Swat Incidents (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News:
The California man behind a years-long string of hoax 911 calls -- including one that ended in a Kansas man's death -- wants to plead guilty to all charges, court documents revealed. Tyler Rai Barriss, 25, intends to waive his right to trial and admit guilt to a 46-count federal indictment, according to a document he signed on Oct. 18 and was filed in U.S. District Court on Wednesday. Barriss faces up to life behind bars for his dozens of acts of "swatting" -- calling police to falsely report a serious crime, in hopes of drawing a massive response to the home of an unsuspecting target.... According to the court records, Barriss will admit to dozens of "swatting" incidents all over America between 2015 and the end of 2017, The false alarms connected to Barriss happened in Ohio, Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, MIssouri, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Indiana, Michigan, Florida, Connecticut and New York.
Barriss performed SWATs if clients sent him $10 over PayPal -- occasionally demanding "upwards of $50," according to a new (possibly pay-walled) article on Wired. A Call of Duty player hired Barriss to SWAT a teammate who'd caused them to lose a $1.50 wager, but his intended target supplied a false address across town which resulted in the fatal police shooting.
Both gamers are now "awaiting trial on lesser charges," reports NBC.
Barriss performed SWATs if clients sent him $10 over PayPal -- occasionally demanding "upwards of $50," according to a new (possibly pay-walled) article on Wired. A Call of Duty player hired Barriss to SWAT a teammate who'd caused them to lose a $1.50 wager, but his intended target supplied a false address across town which resulted in the fatal police shooting.
Both gamers are now "awaiting trial on lesser charges," reports NBC.
Every time the police just shrugs and gets off free.
"We didn't do anything. Someone said there was a situation at this address, so we just bust the door down and shot whoever was inside. It's not our fault"
And the worst part is that you Americans just accept that this is the way it is and has to be. You just yell at the guy who made the phone call, but have nothing to say about the vaccuum-headed police and their inability to investigate or even think before firing their weapons.
Now fix the on-call violence delivery service. At least add:
- accountability for police
- mandatory fact-finding before believing whatever story a caller wants to tell
- body cameras with recordings available to the public (maybe with some controls if you're scared of the public having access to the information for whatever reason)
- specific trading requirements for SWAT teams, with presumed liability for failure to train
- a duty for the police to make a genuine attempt protect the life and dignity of everyone they encounter
Swatting is just one of the reasons why associating any online accounts you have with your real identity is a terrible idea. This happened because a guy lost a counterstrike match. Another teammate was mad at him, they got in an argument, the guy tried to dox him though his steam profile linked to a facebook page, and ended up getting a completely random person killed as a result. You put your real info on those social media pages, and that's the police kicking down your door and you getting killed. People ask "what do you have to hide". Apparently it's a bunch of jackbooted thugs kicking down your door at 11:30pm because some pathetic waste of flesh on the internet who was mad over losing a $1.50 bet decided to pay someone to anonymously call in a hostage situation.
Have you considered just not having a militarized police force?
No of course not, because you're amerimutts and therefore "exceptional". The solutions discovered anywhere else in the world don't apply to exceptional america.
Given long enough, a fake nation full of reject religious nuts will eventually fully reinvent civilization. But it will take hundreds of years at least.
The police had cause to come to the house, they had a call for help and the caller provided an address.
Absolutely. Then they had a call to wonder why the house didn't match the description, why the call didn't actually come in on 911, why the guy at the door seems confused, etc. Too bad they failed that one. Next up, they had the number one rule of shooting, VERIFY YOUR TARGET. They get an EPIC FAIL on that one.
I don't think it's at all too much to ask that police think before they start shooting so they don't kill people minding their own business in their own homes.
I see a lot of anger in the comments so far directed towards the police, not just the officers in this swat incident but generally. Well, think of this the next time there's another call to hand over all our guns to the government because, "you can just call the police". Well, someone did call the police and, if the comments here are to be believed, the police are incompetent, bloodthirsty, both, or worse.
Is it too much to ask for both that we don't rely on the police for everything and when they do come that they are competent, intelligent, and well trained? Remember that the police come from the public. If the police officers never saw a gun until they arrive at the academy then they are going to be poorly trained on the proper use of a firearm. We cannot put the gun genie back in the bottle. Guns exist and the world is better for it.
Let's not forget that, again according to comments here, there is an orangutan in the Oval Office tossing feces all over Twitter. You want him to have all the guns? Remember folks, don't create a government that you are not willing to give to your opposition because your friends might not always be in charge.
Now, return to your cop bashing.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The cop shot someone when the someone was not a threat. That should be a murder charge as shooting someone who is not a threat should not be tolerated.
Had a case up here not long ago where the cop got acquitted of murder as the knife wielding person was a threat. The cop did get convicted of attempted murder for the 6 bullets he put in him after the 2 (3?) that killed the perp. There needs to be more consequences for people misusing and removing peoples freedom to live by misusing firearms.
You want an armed society, the armed people better be responsible with those arms and in my experience, there are too many who aren't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
He might not have wanted anyone to die, but you'd have to be pretty naive to argue that he attached a 0% probability to that actually happening. I did plenty of stupid shit in my youth that could have resulted in my death, but I don't think I ever thought there wasn't a chance of it happening, merely that it was just incredibly low or just an acceptable risk for the enjoyment and thrill I might get out of it.
Even then, I don't think I could have jumped through the mental hoops necessary to rationalize calling a swat team on someone would have no chance at all of ending with someone being unjustly killed. Maybe you could argue that someone could be pissed off enough to do it as an act of exceptionally poor judgement in the heat of the moment, but this person was a dispassionate third party.
So basically, if police gets called to a residence, you think they should have licence to kill literally anyone they come across, even the victim.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Guy comes out. Looks confused. Starts turning - possibly to say something to someone in the house, I don't know. Cops open fire from across the street and from the partial cover of their police cars. Innocent man dies.
If I am misrepresenting what happened please correct me.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Goddamn trigger happy pig killed an innocent man from 60 yards.
That cop needs to be behind bars.
Which in this case beyond a shadow of a doubt are the COPS. They had a dozen guys in full Judge Dredd body armor, AND they were hiding behind their cop cars AND they had MULTIPLE NON LETHAL options from CS to taser to bean bag rounds, against a single dude in a pair of shorts...and they just unloaded on him.
I'm sorry but it was a straight up execution, pure and simple. They CHOSE to go straight to lethal without even the slightest attempt at hostage negotiation (remember their big excuse is there were supposed to be hostages...so where was the standard hostage negotiation?) or using any of the multiple non lethal options that could have TRIVIALLY ended the situation with zero loss of life.....I'm sorry but they weren't a SWAT team, they were a hit squad.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Absolutely.
I think an investigation into murder / manslaughter charges is warranted, but I could my way into a "not guilty" verdict, although I'm leaning guilty (to be clear: I think the SWATter bears more guilt because they had malicious intent, this cop was "just" criminally reckless but did not intend to hurt innocents).
However, this person has demonstrated without any doubt that they cannot be trusted with the power of life and death. The default should be to permanently bar him from police duty and similar (like guard duty), and (I know this is somehow controversial in some parts) remove his right to carry firearms. And reversing either of those decisions should require an extraordinary demonstration of why he can now be trusted not to accidentally kill innocents.