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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.
Now arrest the fuckers who procured his services.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
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.
I think the more fucked up part was that he only charged $10. When it comes down to it, everyone eventually sets a dollar amount (whether they consciously believe they do or not) for the value of human life, but $10 is really lowballing it.
Though, I suppose the guy who paid the $10 for the swatting over losing a $1.50 wager is even worse.
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
Somebody's got to be on the left end of the emotional intelligence bell curve.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
I'm all for the government having their warrantless search powers scaled back but I also don't want to live in a world where the police hesitate on responding to a 911 call for help because of getting too many prank calls. This is the old "cry wolf" parable on a modern world. The police had cause to come to the house, they had a call for help and the caller provided an address. This is in effect their warrant.
You need to pick your battles better, this is not one which will gain much traction in painting the police as the "bad guy". This is all on the prank caller and I believe he deserves any punishment he gets, up to life in prison. He knew what he was doing, that it could result in people getting killed, did so repeatedly, and did so on the whim of a few bucks tossed his way.
Any issues of warrantless searches have nothing to do with this case.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
They were hard-core gamers, though. Ten bucks might be about right.
This is all on the prank caller....
The cops didn't have to shoot an unarmed man from across the street as soon as he opened the door. There is no excuse for that kind of incompetence and stupidity. Their lives were never in danger. They didn't size up the scene properly. And they didn't verify their target - it could have easily been a hostage.
It's all on the cops.
> The police had cause to come to the house, they had a call for help
> and the caller provided an address. This is in effect their warrant.
Ex-bleeping-scuse me. Police knock on the door, a fat guy in shorts comes to answer it, and a police sniper scores a direct hit on the guy's head, killing him instantly. He was no threat to anybody. *EVEN IF THIS HAD BEEN A REAL HOSTAGE SITUATION*, the hostage taker is more likely to send a hostage to answer the door, than to answer it himself. The trigger-happy asshole who pulled the trigger is just as guilty as Barriss.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
over an $1.50 bet some payed $10 to get back?
Maybe over an $100 bet but $1.50???
I remember a time when a gamer saved the life of an elderly gamer by calling an ambulance when he became delirious.
That might have been in the first year of World of Warcraft. Maybe Dark Age of Camelot. It's been a long time.
Gamer culture sure has changed,
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
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.
Other swats have resulted in well publicized tragic outcomes before he made his. Bullshit he didn't know this.
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.