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California Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Deadly Kansas 'Swatting' (fox4kc.com)
slipped_bit writes: Tyler R. Barriss, 26, who pleaded guilty to multiple counts of "swatting" attempts, including the case that caused an innocent man to be killed by police in 2017, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. The case in 2017 was all because of a dispute between two online players over a $1.50 bet in the "Call of Duty: WWII" video game. A total of 51 federal charges related to fake calls and threats were made against Barriss. "Barriss' prosecution in Wichita consolidated other federal cases that had initially been filed against him in California and the District of Columbia involving similar calls and threats he made," reports FOX 4 Kansas City. "Prosecutors had asked for a 25-year sentence, while the defense had sought a 20-year term."
"The intended target in Wichita, Shane Gaskill, 20, and the man who allegedly recruited Barriss, Casey Viner, 19, of North College Hill, Ohio, are charged as co-conspirators," the report adds. "Authorities say Viner provided Barriss with an address for Gaskill that Gaskill had previously given to Viner. Authorities also say that when Gaskill noticed Barriss was following him on Twitter, he gave Barriss that old address and taunted him to 'try something.'"
"The intended target in Wichita, Shane Gaskill, 20, and the man who allegedly recruited Barriss, Casey Viner, 19, of North College Hill, Ohio, are charged as co-conspirators," the report adds. "Authorities say Viner provided Barriss with an address for Gaskill that Gaskill had previously given to Viner. Authorities also say that when Gaskill noticed Barriss was following him on Twitter, he gave Barriss that old address and taunted him to 'try something.'"
"while the defense had sought a 20-year term."
"Well son you might have been looking at a long stretch, but I managed to get you off with 20 years!"
Instead of pointing the gun at yourself, point it at someone else.
Only a matter of time before it went off and killed someone.
Twenty years seems light considering the number of times he swatted people.
Ars also has an informative story with lots of links. This guy does deserve the sentence he got. If his jail sentence means others will learn not to do horrendous acts that endanger peoples lives then GOOD! No sympathy for this sociopath or psychopath. Don't parents teach kids that video games are not reality?
Considering he actually got someone killed, and his sentence helps send a message to other potential swatters... the minimum amount of fla, err, sentence doesn't seem quite enough.
On the other side of this coin how is it possible after years of swatting action, that it's still really possible to swat anyone? It seems at this point like just a single source call should not be quite enough to trigger such an extreme response, or more recon should be done, or something.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Serves zero time.
The sentence is fair, for the SWAT call was the trigger for the events that eventually lead to the homeowners death. It also shows how additional training for police response would be a good thing to try to handle the losers trying to abuse the system to cause harm to others.
If I were family of the guy who got killed, I'd send this asshole a case of Dove pink beauty bars, unwrapped.
How long did the guy who actually pulled the trigger and sent the deadly bullet get?
I don't see why Shane Gaskill should be held responsible for somebody else's reckless actions. If I were to post a random address here along with "Try something" should I by changed if somebody goes to that address and kills the resident? I personally don't think so.
Classifying him as a co-conspirator also seems odd. If I'm in a hostage situation and the hostage taker asks for my address, and I give him a fake address, should I be classified as a co-conspirator if the hostage taker than goes and kills somebody at that address? Again, I don't think so.
I find it worrying that you can be charged for a serious crime just for giving out a fake address. Anyone could potentially end up in that situation, particularly young people. Surely there has to be an element of intent involved? With no intent on Gaskill's part, I don't think he should be in anyway responsible. Charging the intended victim seems very wrong, even if he did give out a fake address.
Good. Duck that asshole.
The loser is the Finch family. And Andrew Finch's niece shot herself in a suicide attempt.
“If I could take it back, I would, but there is nothing I can do,” Barriss told the court. “I am so sorry for that.”
Uh, no, you cunt. You showed that you have no remorse throughout the whole ordeal.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
There is no time or place for this type of prepubescent bullshit. This was done with full knowledge that someone could be seriously injured or killed. These dip shits knew exactly what they were doing and they knew it was wrong. I have absolutely zero sympathy for these convicted fuckers. I only wish the system would have handed out heavier sentences. In case you didn't bother to actually look into it these fuck faces literally ruined an entire families being.
That does not mean that I am not placing any blame on the police, SWAT and other agencies that royally fucked up too. I mean how hard would it have been to call the fucking house and verify a randomly reported crime in progress. Unfortunately there will be no justice served there so I can only hope that meaningful policy and practice reform has actually taken place and not just PR management.
rotflmao "LEROY's TeddyBear"
People still blaming the cops on this one. Get a clue, please. This is the US. Guns outnumber people. It's just a cold, hard fact: US cops have to deal with a population that's swimming in guns, and it's their responsibility to somehow keep the "peace" So they assume that pretty much everyone they encounter is packing, which means they're going to escalate to gunfire very, very quickly in response to anything outside of "normal, quite street scene".
Cops are like this because of the choices we've made as a civilization about guns. We engineered this situation. I'm not making value judgments - just pointing out that the trade-off is absolutely clear. We really, really, really, really want free ownership of guns. But freedom isn't free - the cost is a high murder rate, school shootings and swat events gone bad. And it's obvious to me that we're generally ok with this tradeoff as a group. When gun violence makes the news, 20% of the population wrings their hands, 20% of the population goes out and buys more guns, and 60% shrugs their shoulders. After 72 hours everyone forgets about it. The dead get buried, maybe someone goes to prison, insurance companies write a few checks, more guns go into circulation, and everyone hangs around till the next event. We could have gotten rid of the guns decades ago if we really wanted to.
Oh, and here's a message to any NRA type who comes back with "guns don't cause increased violence" or "guns make schools safer" or any variant of that: shut the f*** up, grow a pair, and admit that your favorite toy comes with a blood price. No, your family is NOT safer cause you have a gun in the nightstand. Yes, school shootings are DEFINITELY linked to easy gun availability. Yes, our sky high murder rate is BECAUSE of guns. For Gods sake, just own up to the price we pay instead of hiding behind something that Charleton Heston spewed in support of a gun industry lobby. You'll get a ton more respect from me.
The swatter orchestrated an incredibly dangerous situation and is the one to blame for this. For what's basically a murder (not first degree) 20 years seems reasonable. He's not in for life, but he'll be in a cage long enough that his testosterone levels will be way lower when he gets out. He probably won't be a threat by then.
Strap him down into a restraint chair, and put a rigid RIPP-restraints mask on his face. Make his prison stay as uncomfortable as possible. Put the footage on Live Leak.
like the man he killed for no reason.
In America when you see a cop, you're supposed to pull your pants down.
There are NO perfect human beings. Putting a human being into a government uniform and training him or her to be more skilled than an amateur is a productive thing but is not going to make him/her super-human.
As a result:
If you pull a "swatting" stunt like this YOU are the one putting an imperfect human into that position and furthermore, the swatter is specifically arming that law enforcement personnel with false information, making the scenario even more unsafe and unfair for both the eventual victims and for law enforcement.
Yes, it's true that in every swatting I have heard of the police did something imperfectly, but that's natural - that's the REAL WORLD. The swatter knows full-well that the police/swat/fire/paramedics etc will be imperfect people and that some might be poorly trained, or overly tired, or have recently been injured and now be more twitchy, or might be slightly distracted by thoughts of health or family or financial or career problems, or might have a glove that's too tight, or a bit of gravel in a shoe, or might be distracted at a critical moment by a dog or a passerby, or..... ANYTHING that happens with real humans in the real world.
Ther person who does the swatting is completely responsible for setting up whatever mayhem results when imperfect but armed humans show up to an unknown-to-them situation thinking they need to save somebody's life while trying to avoid getting maimed or killed themselves. The swatter, in-effect, has risked the lives of a large number of people including not just the residents of the targeted address (who may be killed by the swat team), but also the swat team (who could be killed by each other or by an innocent homeowner who think's he's defending his family), and even any passers-by who have nothing to do with the event but could end up in the crossfire that might erupt. The swatter even endangers innocent people miles away who could be in a vehicle accident with various first responders going to the event, or racing to a hospital with wounded after such an event.
Don't shift ANY blame from the idiot who pulls a pin on a grenade and tosses it into a crowd, to the person who responds to it by trying to shield people from the blast with his own body and fails to do so perfectly - which is the sort of re-direct you are pulling.
Oh! What sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies? There is a pestilence upon this land... nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history.
It just seems weird to me that the intended target was charged as a co-conspirator. Was it for giving a fake (old) address? Seems a really low bar to co-conspire in something, if you can get charged for misdirection against and evading someone actively trying to cause you harm.
We cannot have a society that will kill on a stranger's word.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
See subject: Those little shits are going to GET IT RIGHT UP THE ASS from some TWISTED "Big Black Buck" in jail (worse than death - means AIDS probably & suffering for the little FUCKS).
* THINK ABOUT IT!
(They'll be in worse suffering then DEATH by far - then, throw on the "salad tossing"'s they'll be MADE to do too? You get the picture...)
APK
P.S.=> Serves little "SCHEMERS" right - I'd love to be there watching them get "CORKED" real nice like, lol - as LEROY's "TeddyBear"... apk
He is going into the Feds, not State.
Even with no time served, he is eligible for about 32 months of Good Conduct Time, so, his projected release will be about 17.5 years out. Since he's under 20 years, he's eligible for Low Security. He is young, though, so he might still wind up designated to a Medium. Depends what the analysts in Texas think of him.
Regardless, even if he goes to a Medium, it's not going to be one of the warrior academies. He would probably go somewhere like Allenwood, Butner, or maybe even Lexington.
I'm not saying it's going to be fun, but it's not going to be Shawshank, either.
Ooh! I just remembered. I think they revamped the Good Time calculation recently. He may serve even less than 17.5 years.
The problem is 'what' training. When you repeatedly tell the officer to shoot if there is fast motion where you can't see both hands, that's what they're going to do. Telling them the same thing more often is not going to make them stop. You have to actually change the thing you're telling them to do.
You're sitting at home watching TV and there's a commotion outside. A loud voice starts demanding that you exit your home. You go open the door to see what is happening.
A bunch of people (cops?). You're surrounded. Bright lights, you're blinded. You're confused.
Let's consider that for a second: YOU ARE CONFUSED.
Next, you make some random movement with your hand (NOT going for a gun - you don't have a gun!) and the next sound you hear is harps, 'cause you're gone.
Why didn't the COPS imagine this? Why isn't part of their training to understand that when you point guns at people and yell at them, some of them get confused? Being confused during a police encounter should not result in a death sentence.
Everyone keeps saying that the swatter is the only one with culpability here. This police force made their SWAT team available for this activity. Don't they have at least as much culpability as someone who leaves a loaded gun where a child can find it and be injured or killed?
This piece of scum needs to spend a long time thinking about what a loser he is. The only problem is that the cop who shot the innocent, unarmed man in his own home won't see any kind of penalty. Cops have a free license to kill any and citizens in the USA.
It is tough to be right 100% of the time. You're right.
But when you are the guy who is wrong that one time, and you kill some innocent person, and it happens because of your personal judgement (nobody else was shooting, just YOU), you should be held accountable.
I am a convicted felon. I could have died coming out of that last bank, would have been nobody's fault but my own. I get that.
MOST police shootings are justified. I get that. Hell, I subscribe to Donut Operator's channel on YouTube.
When they are not justified, though, we are not served by a justice culture that protects bad shooters.
I would just point out that it WAS a "normal, quite street scene" until the cops showed and executed that guy.
Not much of that in the Feds, especially at lower security levels.
Yes, they do a hard job, and mostly they do it well.
When they do it badly though, as in this case, accountability is critical.
Do you recognize that tense relations between police and community increases danger to the police officers? Then let's also recognize that this greatly increases that tension.
Officer Justin Rapp, the person who actually pulled the trigger, testified about the event and said he didn't see a gun, just saw him moving briefly towards his waist: https://www.kansas.com/news/lo...
Pretty much matches up with the other descriptions given - not sure why so few news outlets mention the officer's name.
+1 Informative.
He'd better hope he doesn't get sick though. What the Bureau of Prisons does instead of medical care is a scandal. There are many examples but for a recent one see Kiriakou's reporting from FCI Loretto.
Even minimum security is pretty miserable. Imagine 17.5 years of no sex, no Internet, and at most 5 books while being pushed around by chickenshit people.
You learn that all of that stupid bullshit about prisons you saw in movies is not real.
A startling entry for the competitor of the infamous Florida Man.
So when does the cop who shot and killed an innocent man get charged with murder? Oh, right, they will never be held accountable.
The cop shot an innocent man on heresay. He was protected by the thin blue wagon circle. The police aren't only incompetent, they are corrupt and treasonous and you're an authoritarian ass-licker.
s/Kid/Cop/
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Both of them. A hitman and his client are held in equal culpability for the homicide they commit together; so it should be with this.
Fair point. It doesn't need to be either/or.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A scumbag made a false police report indicating a crime was in progress - and did it with the intent to cause chaos.
Nothing about that says the police are corrupt - they were not taking bribes or anything.
Nothing about that says the police are treasonous - they were not undermining national security.
Yes, local police can be rather dumb about making raids on hot crime scenes and that needs to be addressed very seriously all across the country, but that problem would never come into play without a criminal scumbag making a false police report.
I'm absolutely no authoritarian - I'd love to see both George W Bush and Barack H Obama in prison for life. I'm for the smallest government possible and it doing only the handful of stuff the Constitution says it should do. The only "ass licker" around here seems to be you and your apparent fetish for a criminal scumbag who probably leans toward anarchism.
You not only had no argument at all, your insults were not even coherent.
Twenty years would be good for the cop too. As long as they are Neptunian years.