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from the yellow-stripe-down-the-back-of-the-uniform dept.
From the NY Daily News (and covered almost everywhere):
A Kansas man shot to death by police earlier this week was the victim of a misdirected online prank known as "swatting," according to social media chatter.
The victim, identified as Andrew Finch, was gunned down on Thursday night after cops responded to his Wichita home amid a false report that he had shot his father to death and was holding his mother, brother and sister hostage.
A responding officer fatally shot Finch, 28, when he came to the front door, Wichita deputy police chief Troy Livingston said during a press conference. Livingston declined to comment on what triggered the officer to open fire and would not say whether Finch was armed.
Police briefing (10m8s). Body camera footage (53s).
I'm speechless.
takyon: The swatting was quickly linked to a dispute between two Call of Duty players:
On Twitter, more than a dozen people who identified themselves as being in the gaming community told The Eagle that a feud between two Call of Duty players sparked one to initiate a "swatting" call. After news began to spread about what happened Thursday night, the people in the gaming community, through Twitter posts, pointed at two gamers.
"I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION," said one gamer, who others said made the swatting call. His account was suspended overnight.
According to posts on Twitter, two gamers were arguing when one threatened to target the other with a swatting call. The person who was the target of the swatting gave the other gamer a false address, which sent police to a nearby home instead of his own, according to Twitter posts. The person who was to be the target of the swatting sent a Tweet saying, "Someone tried to swat me and got an innocent man killed." [...] Dexerto, a online news service focused on gaming and the Call of Duty game, reported the argument began over a $1 or $2 wager over the game.
Update: 911 Call from suspect (4m58s).
Brian Krebs conversed with the apparent suspect over Twitter.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:46AM (4 children)
Outrage? Well, it's certainly deserved, but I think you're seeing that people are just tired. The police forces in the US are almost never held responsible for their errors. In any civilized country, killing someone who was not threatening you in any way is a ticket to jail. In the US, police are immune to any sort of consequences, whether they tossed a grenade into a baby's crib, shot an Australian tourist who was trying to report a crime, or (this is not a first) held a heavily-armed SWAT raid on the wrong house.
As for the gamer who called in the SWAT raid defenitely deserves some consequences. Maybe not manslaughter - if the police were competent, no one would have died - but at a minimum he abused emergency services and knowingly endangered people.
The guy who gave a fake address? That's dumb, but probably not actionable. The question is: why did he give any address at all?
The real target of outrage must remain the police. Military gear, military mentality, kindergarten-level skills. This, apparently, at all levels from local cops to the feds. And the entire government at all levels backs them up. For this, along with many other reasons: Y'all need to fix your government. Only, like the hick told the lost tourist: If you want to get *there*, you don't want to start from *here*.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @12:11PM (1 child)
I thought I would just leave this here then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_incident [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @01:03PM
he said civilized
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday December 30 2017, @09:24PM
He is going down big time. He is an easy defendant upon whom the prosecutor can shift as much blame (away from cops) as possible. Each word in his 911 call will be scrutinized to illustrate that he intentionally arranged the most deadly SWAT response. He couldn't be sure, of course, that the homeowner will be shot for trying to keep his pants up, but he made everything possible to make it happen.
Not a lawyer, but it looks like he will not get out of this unscathed. He felt danger, but instead of reporting it and solving the situation properly, he pushed someone else into the dangerous spot. If the criminal law won't reach him, the civil lawsuit will.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @06:41AM
The situation that actually occurred was both likely and expected, due to the nature of police response to such calls. This gamer called 911 fully intending for the police to respond exactly as they did.
It is morally no different from calling a hitman. In this case, the hit was successful (well, other than the target being wrong), so that would be a murder. And the police officers involved were the hitmen.
The difference here is that for some reason the hitmen will not also face consequences.