young man sentenced to 20 years for false emergency phone call

Discussion in 'Law & Justice' started by kazenatsu, Apr 6, 2019.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Tyler Barriss, whose hoax call to Wichita police led to the shooting death of an innocent man, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, the Associated Press reports. The sentence in Kansas federal court is a stark reminder of the serious consequences of the deadly prank of making a false emergency call.

    The December 2017 death of Andrew Finch began with an online feud over a Call of Duty game. Casey Viner, then around 18 years old, allegedly recruited Barriss to "swat" the Wichita home of Shane Gaskill, who was about 19. Barriss called Wichita police pretending to be a deranged man with a gun holding members of his family hostage, giving what he believed was the target's address.
    As Barriss expected, the police responded by dispatching a SWAT team.
    But Gaskill lied to Barriss about where he lived. As a result, police surrounded a home occupied by the Finch family, which had nothing to do with the online dispute.

    When 28-year-old Andrew Finch opened his front door, a police officer shot him. The officer later claimed at one point he saw Finch reaching for his waist and feared he had a gun. In reality, Finch was unarmed. (The police officer who shot Finch was not charged)

    Barriss had also made multiple similar false emergency calls to police before this incident.

    Viner and Gaskill were also charged with federal crimes as a result of Finch's death. Viner (the man who allegedly asked Barriss to swat Gaskill) was charged with conspiracy. Gaskill was charged with wire fraud for giving Barriss the wrong address and then goading him into swatting it anyway. Both men are also in trouble for allegedly trying to destroy records of potentially incriminating chat messages.​

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/man-gets-20-years-for-deadly-swatting-hoax/


    Should this young man really be held entirely responsible for a mistake made by law enforcement?

    Yes, of course he should be severely punished, but a prison sentence of 20 years?
    For making a phone call?

    Should Gaskill really have been charged for lying about his address to some random stranger online who told him he was out to get him?
    (He was charged with "wire fraud", another example of an open-worded law being very broadly interpreted and questionably applied by a prosecutor)
     
  2. BillRM

    BillRM Well-Known Member

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    Twenty years is too short of a sentence in my opinion for such a misdeed that resulted in a death of a completely innocent man at his own home.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2019
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  3. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    @kazenatsu In that kind of case, it's better to be too harsh than not enough. He was stupid, but being stupid isn't an excuse.

    I think it's completely fair.
     
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  4. Pardon_Me

    Pardon_Me Banned

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    Well since:

    "Barriss ultimately pled guilty to making a false report resulting in a death, cyberstalking, and conspiracy. He also acknowledged that he had been responsible for "dozens of similar crimes in which no one was injured."

    Barriss had been accused of making a similar call to police in Calgary a week before the Wichita shooting. Barris also pled no contest to a fake 2015 bomb threat in Glendale, California."

    He is where he should be.


    The cop who killed the guy should have been charged as well.

     
  5. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, he should be held responsible for his own crimes, which is exactly what appears to have happened. Any mistakes made by law enforcement are their responsibility (note that being held responsible doesn’t have to involve criminal conviction).

    Not just for making a phone call. If you actually read the article you linked you’ll see he was convicted of a whole series of different offences with the 20 years being the combined sentence for them all.

    For just giving the wrong address no, for “for giving Barriss the wrong address and then goading him into swatting it anyway” (from the article you linked again), sure.
     
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  6. yasureoktoo

    yasureoktoo Banned

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    He should stay in jail for as long as the innocent man is in his grave.
     
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  7. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    the cop should offer to cut the lawn of the widow for the rest of his life, and beg for her forgiveness
     
  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    An update about Shane Gaskill. He was arrested and charged with "wire fraud". He was playing an online game, and had gotten into an argument (over a stupid $1.50 bet) with another player, Casey Viner, who threatened to find out where he lived and get the SWAT team to show up with a fake emergency call. Gaskill then gave a fake address (implying that was where he lived) and taunted the other player to carry out his threat by typing the message "please try some s**t."

    Eventually Gaskill ended up making a deal for deferred prosecution, where the prosecutor dropped the charges but Gaskill had to pay $1,000 in restitution and court costs, as well as be subject to certain other restrictions for a period of time (likely being forbidden from playing online computer games for 2 years; that was the condition set for the other player, Andrew Finch, after he finishes his 15 month prison sentence he got).

    But keep in mind he would very likely have been in prison for more than a year if his family had not put up the bail money.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/gamer-sentenced-swatting-prank
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2019
  9. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle Banned

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    He got off lightly. First degree murder, he should have gotten life plus 200 years. Make an example of him.
     
  10. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle Banned

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    The cop should be nailed to a cross and left until his bones fall apart.
     
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  11. Quasar44

    Quasar44 Banned

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    US has too many mentally sick cops going rogue
     
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  12. Quasar44

    Quasar44 Banned

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    20 yrs seems not enough
     
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  13. Quasar44

    Quasar44 Banned

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    A cop might just pull you over with a simple traffic stop?? Next you know your are lying in the morgue and a knife was planted on you.
    This nation needs to hire more intelligent and more stable cops.
     
  14. BillRM

    BillRM Well-Known Member

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    An what the hell does the above have to do with the idiot who made the false 911 call and started the chain of events that results in the death of a completely innocent man.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
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  15. Quasar44

    Quasar44 Banned

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    The cop opened fired on an innocent and unarmed man
     
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  16. BillRM

    BillRM Well-Known Member

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    True an once more what does that have to do with someone who started a chain of events that resulted in an innocent man death punishment?

    Without that false phone call the dead man would still be enjoying his life not being bury in the ground.

    The author of that phone call should indeed be punish for the man death an any other bad judgments or bad actions by police officers should be deal with as a separate issue in no way reducing the guilt of the idiot who placed the phone call.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
  17. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I had to mull this over a bit, but ultimately I think justice was served. I think any reasonable person understands the inherent risk of flooding a residence with armed men who are expecting a fight to save a family from an unhinged murderer. At the very least, the caller was hoping for the victim and the victims family to have their door broken down, their home invaded and terrorized by shouting men with guns. Even if the caller was certain no would be killed, its a very callous and evil thing to do to someone.

    And most typically Im the first to advocate for more restraint and caution be excercised by armed LE when dealing with the public, but they had every reason to believe they were on a mission to neutralize a murderer and save a family. Theres just not a lot of room for restraint and caution in that scenario.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
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  18. willburroughs

    willburroughs Well-Known Member

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    G
    Good. If there is any justice, he will be repeatedly raped in jail until he hangs himself in shame. The sentence should have been life without parole.
     
  19. willburroughs

    willburroughs Well-Known Member

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    Meh. Kazen is a one-trick pony. He continually and consistently misrepresents facts in order to feign outrage over arrests, convictions, sentences, etc.. In this instance, he tries to pretend that this guy made a phone call and they gave him 20 years. The reality is, he pled guilty to 51 federal crimes. He had a criminal record including domestic assault, and had served 16 months in prison for making bomb threats to a TV station and an elementary school. When the swatting incident happened, he was already wanted by police for making 30 bomb threats, including to schools.

    But yeah, he was unfairly given 20 years because he just made a phone call.
     
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  20. AltLightPride

    AltLightPride Well-Known Member

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    It's always the same scenario. A guy makes a suspicious move that could or could not mean he's reaching for a gun, and the cop shoots him dead.

    I think there really should be a discussion on how to handle this situation. It has cost countless lives at this point.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2020
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  21. Diablo

    Diablo Well-Known Member

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    Do the police in the US use Tazers?
     
  22. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, you can't really blame them.
    But here's an interesting way of looking at it: If the tables were switched, would we excuse a private citizen for doing the same thing?
     
  23. AltLightPride

    AltLightPride Well-Known Member

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    I disagree. Killing someone preemptively just because he could be a lethal threat is basically gambling with the lives of the people you're supposed to protect. The cop definitely needs to react but shoot to kill is not the answer. I don't think it's a crime to do that, but it's definitely police brutality, and it's definitely not right.

    For example, what does shooting him with a gun achieve that shooting him with a rubber bullet doesn't? Don't SWAT folks have riot shields, so they can just take cover and only fire back once they're sure it's a gun? I'm pretty sure there are other options that don't involve killing.

    It's the same standard in both cases IMO.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2020
  24. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. This thread isn't about that, so let's not further derail the main discussion in this thread.

    I think the point was (which hopefully you will agree with) that a person shouldn't be held too much responsible for a blatant mistake made by law enforcement, even if they were the one who caused that altercation to transpire in the first place.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2020
  25. DesertSands

    DesertSands Active Member

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    It wastes police time, tax payer money and puts lives at needless risk and over what? Someone beat you in a video game? The police aren't your personal army to be used against people you dislike. Glad they made an example, society needs a long reprieve from deranged, petty individuals like this.
     

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