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Prosecutors seek 25 years in prison for deadly Kansas hoax
Federal prosecutors are seeking a 25-year prison sentence for a California man who made a hoax call that led police to fatally shoot a Kansas man following a dispute between online gamers.
[...] Barriss faces sentencing Friday in federal court in Wichita for making the false report resulting in a death. He has pleaded guilty to 51 charges related to fake calls and threats across the country.
The defense is seeking a 20-year prison sentence.
Sentencing is set for March 29.
Previously: Swatted: Police Kill Innocent Man in Kansas
Related: Gamers Use Police Hoax to Lash Out at Opponents
Swatter Just Prankster?
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Swatter Who Caused a Death in Kansas Likely Faces at Least 20 Years in Prison
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You can bear anything if it isn't your own fault.
-- Katharine Fullerton Gerould
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:23AM (16 children)
The guy is a douche, and he definitely deserves some prison time. But...
...what about the cops? They're the ones who killed an innocent person, with no justification whatsoever. As has been said before: even if the reported situation had been real, they don't get to preemptively shoot whoever opens the door, because they have no idea who that person actually is.
Some of the police officers need to be in jail, right next to the twerp.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:42AM (7 children)
The cops should be tried for involuntary manslaughter with the minimum sentence, plus the maximum sentence had they violated any police procedure leading to that. This guy ordered armed policemen to enter a house, so it's not even homicide, he is responsible for a potential mass murder. 20 years is not that much.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by isostatic on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:53AM (3 children)
Was this guy the chief of police?
I didn't realise random losers could order armed cops to do things in america.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 02 2019, @07:59PM (2 children)
Random losers may not order armed cops around (well, apparently they can, given how many swattings happen). However, there's quite a bit of precedent for charging someone with murder when someone dies during the commission of a felony [wikipedia.org] in the US. The concept of transferred intent/felony murder isn't new.
Given that it was certainly foreseeable that someone could be hurt or killed could also be construed as "assault with a deadly weapon" and/or "attempted murder."
That said, the ease with which swatting is done (at least in the US), and the likelihood of a violent confrontation, despite the lack of any emergency, points up the poor discipline and lack of professionalism under which many of these paramilitary (the police, that is) groups operate.
N.B.: IANAL
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by isostatic on Saturday March 02 2019, @08:33PM (1 child)
Maybe someone could order a swatting of the white house?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @12:37AM
I think the SS would win that round.
Sheeeit, now I'm thinking some nazi fuck coined that term with long term planning for the eventual coup. It seems pretty goddamn clear there is a significant group that has been salivating over the idea.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:24PM (2 children)
The cop should face at least face ten years in jail, but I doubt he will be even in a court charged of any offense. Anyway he should never go to the streets again and should be doing office work until retirement. So the easy trigger can only only pull the trigger of his automatic pen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @05:30PM (1 child)
But the cops have no other choice. They are protecting themselves and us. Why do you hate America?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QVkdleurzQ [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @07:54PM
i only watched two incidents but the second knife guy was hilarious.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:44AM (5 children)
I was going to write and say pretty much the same thing.
LEA should only open fire if they or the persons that they are defending are in imminent danger of being injured or killed by an armed individual. By armed, I mean somebody who has a weapon, bomb or other device intended to injure or kill someone else. Anything else is too much force. If the threat is not armed and is compliant then the police should be able to control him/her without the use of firearms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @11:26AM (4 children)
Exactly [kansas.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday March 02 2019, @12:42PM (2 children)
Was he aiming a weapon? Did he have a mental condition? Was he holding his trousers up? Did he have a hearing disorder? The first one would justify opening fire, the others not so. What in particular was so threatening about a man who did NOT have a weapon in his hands but was as surprised as hell when SWAT turned up at his home? Perhaps LEA should grow some balls rather than shoot first and then try to justify their actions later. Open fire when you SEE the weapon, not when your imagination starts running amok.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:56PM (1 child)
The cops used their magic phrase, "I feared for my life". The victim put his hands up, as commanded, but kept putting his hands back down at his waist, and the overly credulous, trigger happy, scared stupid cops decided to interpret that as possibly drawing a weapon. They could have fired a warning shot first, but they didn't. There are also "soft kill" methods that disable without killing, such as tasers, but it seems the cops don't much use them. The victim could have done better himself, but from what I read, the primary cause was not his mistakes but the mistakes of the police. They're the ones who escalated the situation to such extremes.
I would say also that the cops were careless, careless of due process and citizen rights. They evidently believed they were confronting a murderer, and people care much less if any death that occurs in this situation is that of a murderer rather than a total innocent. Actually kind of don't mind if the cops save the public from the bother of a murder trial and a long stay on death row. The cops conducted themselves accordingly, and that was the chief mistake. Went in with the wrong attitude. Even if the citizen was not a murderer, they likely figure that he's a lowlife guilty of something, and will not be missed. He wouldn't be accused of a heinous crime if he was a total innocent, they think. Also, there's kudos to be earned for killing a bad guy, and the cops are a little too eager to get those, put a notch on their revolvers. It's that police culture that could be most responsible for the tragic ending. Police officers are never wanted on juries, because they tend to think that even if the allegations of a particular case aren't true, the accused did something else and deserves to be found guilty anyway, or they're more interested in "supporting" their brothers and sisters in blue than in justice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @04:56AM
FYI, use of force instructors flatly discourage warning shots. One reason is that unlike the movies every real life bullet actually hits something or someone. Another is that if the situation is genuinely dangerous you should be saving cartridges for more effective purposes.
That said, an officer on my city's police force said that in some circumstances he might fire his service weapon into his patrol car. He figures the city will end up buying anything he shoots, so it might as well be something they already own. He didn't mention it, but he'd also be activating the street rule of Crazy Always Wins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @08:00PM
stfu you bootlicking bitch. you want videos of people and animals being executed by pigs just because these cowardly pieces of shit think they can do whatever they want? there's plenty of them. so this guy dares to not put his hands where he's told. fuck them. at least he died a man instead of a bitch like you. chicken shit motherfuckers are far away with way more firepower. they kill my dogs or family and you'll see what the fuck justice looks like.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday March 04 2019, @08:09PM (1 child)
I agree that cops should not be so ready to shoot, and some of them should be jailed. But the swatter essentially threw a grenade with the pin still in, and says it's not his fault that the pin fell out and the grenade exploded.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Wednesday March 06 2019, @01:58AM
This has been bugging me. It's a poor metaphor. In his own mind, the swatter was acting like a mob boss telling his people to ruff up someone. The police force eagerly carried out the order and got too enthusiastic.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:42AM (27 children)
How is it that he pleaded guilty to 51 charges, including one that resulted in a death, and he's only facing 25 years?
He has a bad habit of these swatting calls, so this should treated as an ongoing reign of domestic terrorisrm. He knew what he was doing would put people at risk every time he did it, and he did it a shitload of times. Lock him up, throw away the key, and make sure he gets absolutely no phone privileges so he can't pull this shit ever again.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by janrinok on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:46AM (21 children)
Ah, so now a crime is automatically 'terrorism'. Enjoy your rapid ride on the slippery slope - for you it has already started.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:59AM (11 children)
Are you implying that SWAT-team tactics are not (partly) designed to provoke terror in their targets?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 02 2019, @11:33AM (9 children)
Come on, you need to be more concrete than that. Scary movies are designed to provoke terror in their targets.
Obviously, you mean here illegal violence and intimidation designed to provoke terror. But even then, that counts a lot of stuff. For example, if a neighborhood dispute escalates to the point that one party ambushes and assaults another with intent to terrorize and intimidate, it's still not terrorism. Oxford claims the definition [oxforddictionaries.com] is:
Feels kind of weak to me since non-political aims can escalate to that point as well. For example, the Tokyo subway sarin (nerve gas) attack [wikipedia.org] was attributed by Wikipedia authors to:
If we take that assertion (uncited) at face value, it wouldn't be inherently political. There's the tactics of delaying a police investigation, not particularly political and sparking the apocalypse doesn't seem a political act to me, but YMMV.
My view is that organized, large scale, and/or persistent attacks on civilian targets (which can't be construed as genuine military targets in some active war) would be a better choice for determining terrorism. That definition doesn't depend on beliefs of the perpetrators, say whether they're East Alaskan separatists pursuing a political agenda or someone doing it for kicks. It doesn't depend on instilling a particular emotion in its targets, to deal with weird cases where say someone thinks killing a bunch of people is helping them and didn't have an intent to cause fear. And it ignores the sometimes nasty conflicts small groups can get into with each other.
In this case, we have an individual who has committed dozens of fraudulent 911 calls and put a lot of peoples' lives at risk (qualifies as attacks to me). It's not paramilitary, but it is pretty large scale and persistent, if my impression is true. That strikes me as terrorism (though not necessarily satisfying the legal definition) even if the person in question did it to get back at people from games he played.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @12:31PM (8 children)
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Saturday March 02 2019, @12:41PM (7 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:02PM (4 children)
polis = city
politēs = citizen
politikos = of, for, or relating to citizens
How is making a decision like starting the apocalypse anything but political?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:22PM
Replying to myself as to the contradiction in your phrasing:- an apolitical collapse is by definition not something that could be "sparked" by a human.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 02 2019, @04:58PM (2 children)
You can play that game with anything remotely relevant to cities/citizens/people. The weather is political in a similar fashion - though nobody does anything about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @05:45PM (1 child)
No. The weather is apolitical, anthropogenic climate change is political while apocalypse literally means revelation. [etymonline.com] Your usage of initiating a catastrophic event must be political but I just found the phrase amusing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 03 2019, @03:34PM
I guess I swam into a school of red herring.
Except, of course, when it's not.
(Score: 4, Informative) by purdy on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:08PM (1 child)
The domestic terrorism charges stem from Swautistic's calling in a bomb threat to the FCC to disrupt the net neutrality vote.
Threat of violence...Check
Political aim...Check
That'll get you a domestic terrorism charge and rightly so.
Relevant links:
https://www.theverge.com/us-world/2017/12/14/16777178/fcc-net-neutrality-vote-evacuation [theverge.com]
(Complete with video of the police searching the FCC conference room.)
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/01/serial-swatter-swautistic-bragged-he-hit-100-schools-10-homes/ [krebsonsecurity.com]
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:17PM
criminally stupid , is still criminal...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @04:20PM
Terrorism has a very particular definition, please educate yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:28PM (6 children)
A crime? No. This type of crime? Yes.
The intent of swatting it to send heavily armed individuals, who anticipate encountering one or more armed and dangerous individuals, for the purpose of endangering the life of the unsuspecting victim. At the very least the effect of swatting is terrorizing the victim.
Is law enforcement over militarized? Yes. At the time they are responding to a reported violent or hostage situation, do you think law enforcement would rather be over armed than over powered? Yes. Does this lead to tragedy? Yes. Is this the expected and desired result of swatting? Yes.
So no, not all crimes are "terrorism". The vast, vast majority of crimes are not. But sending heavily armed individuals, who expect to encounter someone who intends to kill them, to descend upon someone as a prank with the hope and intent of that person being killed does qualify as "terrorism" in my book.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday March 02 2019, @02:28PM (5 children)
You appear to subscribe to the 'guilty until proven innocent' school of thought. Terrorism is defined, as explained elsewhere, as the furtherance of a political aim. Now if you want to stretch that to anything that frightens people - which is what terror is, but that it isn't necessarily 'terrorism' - then someone creeping up behind you and shouting 'Boo' is possibly a form a terrorism too. Would you think it reasonable to shoot someone who did such a thing?
The individual who lost his life was minding his own business until the SWAT team turned up. The onus is upon them to apprehend the suspect, ascertain if a crime has been committed and only if a crime has been committed should he be treated as a criminal but even so reasonably and using minimum force. If the SWAT team had taken cover, as would be reasonable for them to do, they shouldn't have been much of a target for someone who might have been pulling a handgun from his waistband. He did not pose any current threat to those inside the house because he is now standing outside of it. He would not have been considered to have been a threat to SWAT because they shouldn't be standing up in plain view until the suspect has adopted a safe position e.g. lying face down with his arms outspread. And an innocent life would have been spared.
Until the fine people of the USA start complaining about this sort of behaviour then it will not change. Did the policeman have to justify his actions in court or was he assumed to have acted reasonably without any independent review?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @04:54PM
The police followed proper procedure. Move along, taxpayer!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @06:15PM (3 children)
You appear to subscribe to the 'willfully ignorant because it doesn't match my personal beliefs' school of thought. He plead guilty. He admitted what he did. He admitted doing it many, many times. And he admitted his reasons for doing it.
If you don't think this guy is guilty then what do you think he is, just one of those people who believe they can set something in motion and deny any responsibility or liability? Or maybe you believe that he believes what you believe?
I hope his 25+ years in prison are horrific and painful and so traumatic that he thinks it is a campaign to terrorize him just so you can tell him that his opinion doesn't align with yours.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday March 02 2019, @07:38PM (2 children)
We appear to be arguing at cross purposes - I'm arguing that the guy who was swatted shouldn't have been killed by the police. The guy who set it up is guilty, but not of pulling the trigger. That responsibility for taking his life rests solely with SWAT team.
My opening comment was:
However, you described the actions of the individual who has been found guilty as an act of terrorism. I take exception to that. It is a crime, and a serious, heinous crime at that, but it does not constitute 'terrorism' according to any current legally accepted definition. He did not plead guilty to charges of terrorism.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 03 2019, @07:35PM
Shared responsibility. The guy holding the weapon in his hand is AT LEAST 60% responsible. The guy who made the phone call bears the rest of the responsibility FOR THE KILLING. The caller bears full responsibility for the terror aspect, and for any minor or major injuries sustained as part of the police getting to the scene, and gaining access to the home. The decision to pull the trigger is the cop's decision, so he is more than half responsible. But - if the asshole hadn't made the phone call, no shooting would have ocurred. The caller is responsible for causing a death.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday March 04 2019, @08:15PM
"The guy who set it up" threw a grenade without pulling the pin, and it bounces and the pin comes out and it explodes. Do we say: Oh dear, complete accident, so sorry? Or do we say: You threw a grenade, it was INTENDED to explode - in fact, your drill instructor would probably beat you silly for having failed to pull the pin - and the consequences are your responsibility.
(Score: 0, Troll) by aristarchus on Saturday March 02 2019, @08:11PM
Well at least he wasn't submitting articles on the alt-right!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 03 2019, @07:19PM
Actually, I'm inclined to take AC's side here. Both the AC you responded to, and the AC who responded to you, if they are not the same. Perhaps swatting doesn't precisely fit current definitions of terrorism. I don't see a political goal, so it falls a bit short. Still, the result is terror. Whether there is one person home alone, or an entire family, everyone in the home is going to be terrorized, traumatized, and possibly injured or killed. That terror is intentional. Injuries and deaths may be counted as "extra points" by the person doing the swatting, but he certainly intends to terrorize the victim. This isn't just a simple crime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:58AM (2 children)
LOL, if he is able to SWAT someone from a prison phone he would be a genius. "This is a prepaid call from ... "Douche Mcgee" ... an inmate at PITA Corrections Facility. Press 5 to accept this call."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:16PM
"911, please hold while I patch you through."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:38PM
More racist nonsense. You presume that a criminal is probably a Mic or a Mac. I'm sending another donation to the IRA.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 03 2019, @01:38AM
I'm curious.
Is this going to be the end of it? This is federal. Presumably he is still subject to a lot of state prosecutions.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @04:59AM
Michael Santos, who served 27 years, wrote that after the first 20 it doesn't seem like punishment any more, just normal life.
On the other hand, I would like to keep this REDACTED out of circulation as long as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @01:29PM (7 children)
If it isn't unlawful, use false information. Use a remailing service. Use a VPN. Use throwaway email accounts. Lie on every form you're permitted to. Assume everything will leak. Forego services which require real information. Poison the well by volunteering false information.
Be honest with friends, lie with every breath to corporations (unless it is unlawful).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @02:34PM (5 children)
You do realize the guy committed a crime right?
Even if they police just politely knocked on your door (which he did not want) you would be pissed off having to deal with it. They would be pissed off even being there. Everyone's time is wasted except the troll who is laughing at you.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @03:05PM (4 children)
The victim let his address be known to people who then (willingly or not) gave it to the effective murderer, had he consistently used remailing services/avoided stating it/lied about it then this wouldn't have been possible.
You can't stop people destroying your life once they have that information, your only hope is to not be targeted or prevent it being found.
Just because it's criminal to swat people doesn't mean it won't happen to you, you can't just throw your hands up and say "but it'd be illegal to misuse that information!", that won't do shit to bring your dog back to life. Just because ransomware is illegal doesn't mean you don't need to bother keeping your browser updated. Just because burglary is illegal doesn't mean you don't need to lock your door. Just because swatting is illegal doesn't mean you don't need to keep your address secret.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @06:19PM (1 child)
Yes, yes, blame the victim for not being more bulletproof. Why not just blame him for being alive when the police showed up? If he had killed himself none of this would have happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @07:52PM
The persons morally responsible are the swatter and police, that does not preclude others from having the ability to prevent it.
Advising a person to lock their door isn't blaming those who forget for them having been burgled.
I literally couldn't have made that clearer than the tedious and redundant list of examples, none of which would have been there if there world weren't filled with idiots like yourself.
I hope you're intentionally misunderstanding me, because if not I'll be sad.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 02 2019, @08:19PM (1 child)
Actually, in the case being discussed, the swatter was given an incorrect address and the person shot had absolutely nothing to do do with the dispote that sparked the swatting.
So, yes, the victim let his address be known, because it is a valid address. I imagine that I could choose your address when swatting someone else. That would make you an idiot too, wouldn't it? Please.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @09:23PM
Sorry for not bothering to read TFA. The fact that the intended victim lying about his address saved his life proves the utility of doing so however.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 03 2019, @07:43PM
I don't know what the legality of lying has to do with anything. There are a few documents which really do need to be factual, like a driver's license. A birth certificate. A death certificate. Enlistment papers. I was about to say real estate documents, but those need not be terribly factual - you can make up a maze of corporate shadows to hold the deed to some land and a building. Anything else - I've never worried about legalities. I tell them whatever I decide to tell them on the spur of the moment.
Census forms. The wife finally caught on that I fill in bullshit on the forms, so now she heads me off, and fills all that shit in, THEN tells me that she has done it already. When I did them, I might be Chinese, Latino, Russian, Native American, or Martian - and she and the kids were anything and everything. She just didn't think that was funny.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Saturday March 02 2019, @03:28PM
We need straightforward and clear laws that state what the penalty is for knowingly filing a false police report.
Because we have judgments from warnings to life in prison. And we would definitely benefit from more regularity.
As for this sentence. Who knows, our criminal justice system is built on charging people for bad luck. The guy who blindly speeds through a red light gets a different sentence to the man who blindly speeds throughout a red light while an incompetent driver happens to be at the intersection. But it makes me wonder, what sentence would this man be facing if he prank ordered pizza and the delivery man killed him? Thousands if not hundreds of thousands people call the police regularly on others people on the skimpiest of evidence. This can could of be swatted for any number of legitimate reasons by well meaning neighbors. No one would even consider charging the woman who called in a police report of a AK wielding man in downtown ?NY? for the 12 foot long foam replica of a halo sniper rifle; No matter how many people died at a result of that. So how is it suddenly reckless endangerment when the reasoning changes from incompetence to incompetence with malice?