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.'"

Comments

Re:OK, how about the actual shooter?

[Iwastheone]

Imagine that you are one of the police officers responding to this unknown to you this swat call. All you know is from the police dispatch that there may be a dangerous gun holding suspect at this (wrong address) home. Your adrenaline is pumped up. Innocent person opens the door to his home to see why police are outside. As the cop, all you know is that the guy may be armed and dangerous. How would you react? Yeah, innocent life taken, all due to some video game kid who thinks he's got some type of invincible power to manipulate the police 011 system. Bad info caused by this swatter made the situation happen. Do not blame an officer who reacted when the innocent homeowner opened his door, blame the person who created this entire situation because his online game playing believed he had the power to control his vengeance by using society's protectors.

The last console game I played was GTA3. Very realistic game that glorifies violence, lot of fun crap to do, however I was well into my adulthood then. If I had a son who wanted to play that game then I'd have not allowed him to, unless he had enough maturity to understand that it is just a fantasy video game, not to be taken as reality. If this swatter had any type of parenting, they failed in their job of raising their child.