Slashdot Mirror
FBI Arrests Three More Men Who Hired 'SWAT' Perpetrator (nbcnews.com)
"Three men allegedly conspired with admitted 'swatter' Tyler Barriss to make hoax reports of bombs and murders to police departments, high schools and a convention center across the United States, according to three indictments unsealed today," reports America's Department of Justice.
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News: The three people charged -- Neal Patel, 23, of Des Plaines, Illinois; Tyler Stewart, 19, of Gulf Breeze, Florida; and Logan Patten, 19, of Greenwood, Missouri -- are not accused in the "swatting" call allegedly made by another man that preceded the police shooting of Andrew Finch, a 28, in Wichita on Dec. 28, 2017. But they are accused of asking the suspect in the fatal Kansas case, Tyler Barriss, through Twitter direct messages to make false reports of bombs or threats of shootings that would trigger a law enforcement response and the evacuation of buildings against other targets, including a high school and a Dallas video game tournament....
Patel allegedly conspired with Barriss to make false reports to police in Milford, Connecticut, in December of 2017, and to make a false bomb threat targeting a video game convention in Dallas, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Stewart is accused of conspiring with Barriss to make two false bomb threats about a high school in Gurnee, Illinois, in early December of 2017, and Patten is charged with hiring Barriss to "swat" people in Indiana and Ohio, also in December of 2017, and of scheming with Barriss to "swat" a high school in Missouri, according to prosecutors.
After this week's arrests, the three men each face up to 15 years in federal prison. Patel allegedly also used "unauthorized" credit cards to pay Barriss -- and now faces two more bank fraud charges which each carry up to 30 years in federal prison.
The article also notes that the 25-year-old who actually made the calls -- and the call which led to a fatal shooting in Wichita -- "has agreed to serve a sentence of between 20 and 25 years in federal prison." And the two gamers involved in the dispute which led to that shooting have also been criminally charged.
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News: The three people charged -- Neal Patel, 23, of Des Plaines, Illinois; Tyler Stewart, 19, of Gulf Breeze, Florida; and Logan Patten, 19, of Greenwood, Missouri -- are not accused in the "swatting" call allegedly made by another man that preceded the police shooting of Andrew Finch, a 28, in Wichita on Dec. 28, 2017. But they are accused of asking the suspect in the fatal Kansas case, Tyler Barriss, through Twitter direct messages to make false reports of bombs or threats of shootings that would trigger a law enforcement response and the evacuation of buildings against other targets, including a high school and a Dallas video game tournament....
Patel allegedly conspired with Barriss to make false reports to police in Milford, Connecticut, in December of 2017, and to make a false bomb threat targeting a video game convention in Dallas, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Stewart is accused of conspiring with Barriss to make two false bomb threats about a high school in Gurnee, Illinois, in early December of 2017, and Patten is charged with hiring Barriss to "swat" people in Indiana and Ohio, also in December of 2017, and of scheming with Barriss to "swat" a high school in Missouri, according to prosecutors.
After this week's arrests, the three men each face up to 15 years in federal prison. Patel allegedly also used "unauthorized" credit cards to pay Barriss -- and now faces two more bank fraud charges which each carry up to 30 years in federal prison.
The article also notes that the 25-year-old who actually made the calls -- and the call which led to a fatal shooting in Wichita -- "has agreed to serve a sentence of between 20 and 25 years in federal prison." And the two gamers involved in the dispute which led to that shooting have also been criminally charged.
These little psychos need to be very publicly judged.
Isn't putting someone in PRISON for 20 years just because they made a phone call pretty much the definition of censorship?
Congratulations, you win the Dumbest Comment Award on Slashdot today!
"Hey, I just wanted to rob a bank and those dirty cops denied me the right to express myself with a gun and a mask!"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
here's a great video on the subject of police militarization.
TL;DW, the military has weapons meant for killing people and don't understand when/why not to use them.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you had the slightest bit of humanity in you, you might see the difference between someone fucking up while doing an insanely stresfull job, and someone intentionally creating a situation meant to cause harm. But you don't. You don't give a fuck about the people involved. It's all just politics to you.
You call it "just because they made a phone call"; most sane people call it first degree murder (with the attendant mens rea requirement).
You can debate if 20 years is enough punishment for a first-degree murder, but let's start with a correct premise.
Many jobs are stressful. Most of them don't get the same free pass for killing/harming people as American cops and military do. Nope, not feeling sorry for the cop or empathy for him.
If I may say, censorship is typically the prevention of free speech, and involves "prior restraint". In this case, it's punishment after the fact for fraudulent speech with foreseeably lethal consequences. Similarly, for the other fraudsters, it is not censorship. It's punishment for fraud.
Pray tell, the stress of police work dealing with homicidally violent people equates to which other stressful jobs.
No.
Technically it is not censorship because censorship is the suppression of speech. Punishing someone because of the consequence of the speech is not suppression.
You could argue that it has a chilling effect on speech by others. However it is not *political* censorship. It is censorship in the sense that punishing defamation or criminal threats is "censorship".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you had the slightest bit of humanity in you, you might see the difference between someone fucking up while doing an insanely stresfull job, and someone intentionally creating a situation meant to cause harm.
Anyone else in the same "insanely stressful" situation fucking up in the same way would be facing a trial for killing a harmless guy standing on his porch. We have an absolute right to be safe from being murdered by government agents when we answer the door. If the job means risking murdering someone standing on his porch, then the entire occupation needs fundamental reform at the very least.
And if you guys want a show of humanity, then make it a policy to treat non-police with the same respect and humanity you'd like to experience yourself.
Being extremely defensive when you're clearly in the wrong doesn't help. Acting like accountability is an attack doesn't help.
Also, covering up for each other doesn't help. If you're not a criminal gang, stop behaving like a criminal gang.
You don't give a fuck about the people involved.
Do police give a fuck about non-police?
It is first-degree murder under the felony murder rule, which is recognized in some form or another by all fifty states, the federal government and just about every other government in the world. It works like this: If you plan to commit a felony, then commit that felony and, in the process of committing that felony or as a result of that felony, someone dies, you have committed first-degree murder. If you commit a felony on a whim (that is, you didn't plan to commit it ahead of time), and someone dies during the commission of the felony or as a result, then you have committed second-degree murder. That's how it works.
Now, let's look at the Tyler Barriss SWATting: Barriss talked with other people about making a fraudulent 911 call and then made that fraudulent 911 call. Making a fraudulent 911 call is a crime, and can be a felony under federal anti-terrorism laws. Since the 911 call-center was in Kansas, and Barriss was in California, federal law applies. Talking about it ahead of time is also called planning and is, of and in itself, a crime called conspiracy, which can be a felony. Since Barriss has been convicted of these crimes before*, they can and should be charged as felonies, and Barriss committed those felonies. Someone died as a result of those felonies. Thus, under the felony murder rule, Barriss has committed first-degree murder. Thought I'd let you know,
* Crimes which can be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor, with no difference between elements of the crime, such as conspiracy, misuse of emergency systems, retail fraud, simple assault, etc, are typically charged as misdemeanors on the first (and sometimes, second) offense, and as felonies on subsequent offenses. This is how people get charged with felonies for minor things like shoplifting (aka retail fraud).
The police aren't supposed to be a dial-a-murder service. If we want a dial-a-murder service, we can call up a street gang.
The cops made a judgement and it was a bad judgement, but no one with any sense is going to blame the cops for wanting to go home alive after their shift.
Police who think that's the only thing that matters should go home at the end of their shift and stay home. We don't need police who are ok with killing a few innocent people now and then as long as it turns out ok for the police.
This attitude is 100% of the problem: police care about police and not so much about the people they were hired to protect. Maybe the job wouldn't be so "stressful" if police helped people instead of helping themselves and their greedy political bosses.
Voters need to demand police go back to "protect and serve".
Also, let's forget the "politics" for a minute. What will it take to change things so police kill fewer innocent people? Got any ideas? Any interest in that at all?
That's a loaded question. The number of innocent people killed by police annually is notoriously difficult to quantify, but whatever the exact number may be it's statistically inconsequential; on the same order as the number of people killed by farm animals every year (and yes, I can already see you getting ready to make a pig joke).
The real questions are how much further this number can be lowered, by which methods, and what you're willing to do in order to accomplish that goal. You may want to familiarize yourself with the concept of diminishing returns. If your concern is saving innocent lives, there are far more lives to be saved by further lowering crime rates than there are by reducing police shootings. Put your energy where it can do the most good.
Define "entirely avoidable".
Every police killing is entirely avoidable if we just convince cops to die instead of shooting first. Is that what you mean by "entirely avoidable"? Or do you have some other objective universal metric you're applying here?