
Three Charged in Fatal Kansas ‘Swatting’ Attack - robin_reala
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/05/3-charged-in-fatal-kansas-swatting-attack/
======
Someone1234
Swatting is a lot less effective in other parts of the world for the simple
reason that in other parts of the world the results are super boring. Two
officers will come to the door, ask if everything is ok, perhaps ask to look
around, and then leave as calmly as they arrived.

There's something unique about the style of US policing (perhaps training?
perhaps military backgrounds? perhaps it being styled as militaristic?) that
means these kind of incidents are always escalated by the police themselves.

If you want example just look on YT for "Police Bootcamp" videos like this:

[https://youtu.be/0LC6FTXAxo0?t=2m12s](https://youtu.be/0LC6FTXAxo0?t=2m12s)

To Americans this might not seem odd, because you've been so conditioned to
view police like the military but to people from elsewhere that's uniquely
military style training and conditioning and has no place in a civilian police
force.

Plus the length of training in the US is unusually low[0]

[0] [https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/us/jobs-training-police-
trnd/...](https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/us/jobs-training-police-
trnd/index.html)

~~~
manfredo
This doesn't strike me as a uniquely American thing. When I visited Paris, I
saw lots of pairs of soldiers or police patrolling streets and subway stations
carrying FAMAS rifles. You don't even see that in the US (most foot patrols
only carry pistols, most officers in cars leave their carbines in the vehicle
unless they need it).

~~~
orwin
Sorry, little digression here: It was probably in response to the Terror
attacks, a stuff called "operation sentinelle"[0]. They still patrol near
strategic points now and then, but you see them less often now.

And while military training is not police training, there was some controversy
and some generals said it was a huge mistake, as the money spend on this
operation (~1M$) would have shown better effect if spent on intelligence.
Also, to afford the men, military had to cut monthly training. A friend of
mine said that physical exercise/conditionment was divided by 2, while
tactical and shooting by 4, but he really hated this operation so take it with
a grain of salt.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ration_Sentinelle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ration_Sentinelle)

~~~
johnpowell
I was backpacking around Europe in 1999 and I saw people in military uniforms
with military style weapons patrolling the metro stations in Paris. It made me
uneasy.

~~~
reitanqild
But unlike certain other countries they usually don't use them.

I grew up with a _real_ combat rifle in the house, not a bump-stocked semi AR
that looks scary. Complete with ammo. Same in a number of other houses in the
neighborhood.

Never had reason to worry.

But I guess it might seem scary to Americans.

------
simlevesque
Why do police officers shoot someone who was never a threat ? Kids will be
kids, there will always be kids who do things that are completely
irresponsible, by design. The fact that the person who pulled the trigger is
not responsible at all for all this is beyond me.

~~~
jandrese
Because they were told he was a threat.

Also because of our highly militarized police tactics designed to reduce
potential harm to officers at the cost of everything else.

~~~
simlevesque
> Because they were told he was a threat.

Ok but when they saw him, was he a threat ? Are hearsay enough to pull the
trigger ? That seems irresponsible too.

~~~
jandrese
Wait to evaluate if the guy is a threat and he could have already shot you.
Safer to shoot him first. This is what people are talking about when they
complain about militarized police. Treating unknowns as threats that must be
neutralized instead of something you need to observe closer is how you end up
throwing grenades on sleeping babies and shooting innocent people. But the
converse is that the suburban drug lord pulls out his AR15 and shoots down 3
cops before they have a chance to figure out what is happening.

~~~
retbull
IMO it is the police's responsibility to die first. They are putting
themselves out to protect the public from threats not to kill the public who
might be a threat to them or a fellow police officer.

I am aware that currently legally it is the exact opposite and they have no
responsibility to save or protect anyone only themselves.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _IMO it is the police 's responsibility to die first._

And, pray tell, who in their right mind is going to take _that_ job?

~~~
retbull
Well most of the time they aren't dying and hopefully they are mostly helping
people. Firefighters put their lives at risk in a similar way. The respect and
honor earned by protecting your fellow people is a strong motivator.

Hopefully this would change the public's perception of police to some extent
and improve public relations to the point that they would walk around being
thanked like veterans.

------
curiousgal
> _investigators say the other two men’s efforts to taunt and deceive one
> another ultimately helped point the gun_

Huh, so they're going after people who didn't make the call and ignoring the
biggest culprit that is the police officers? What's the point of having
"trained" professionals if they can't distinguish a real threat from a hoax?

This reminds me of binary classification algorithms that classify everything
as 0 and end up with an accuracy of 90% because of dataset imbalance.

~~~
weberc2
How much training is required to effectively distinguish between a real threat
and a hoax? Do police even get this training or is Swatting a relatively
recent phenomenon that hasn’t made it into police training curriculum yet?
“Evil police” is a nice pat answer, but rarely are such answers correct.

~~~
bunderbunder
Swatting is just a new twist on the long-standing pattern of high-strung
police officers getting jumpy and killing people who were never a threat.
There's even a famous Richard Pryor bit about it.

~~~
weberc2
Earnest question: is this perception based on data or is it biased by media
reporting? (not your perception specifically, but the general perception)

------
jld
It is amazing to me that law enforcement's trigger for using deadly force so
light that two teenagers arguing about a video game can get a third party
killed across a state line.

------
throw7
It really irks me the way the article says Andrew Finch was "at the wrong
place at the wrong time". He was at _his_ house, which he's allowed to be at
_any_ time.

~~~
insickness
It's a figure of speech that implies it was pure coincidence that it happened
to him as opposed to someone else and that he could have done nothing to
prevent it.

------
maxxxxx
I think two steps should be taken:

\- Punish the swatters harshly

\- Take a long hard look at police tactics. There are way too many incidents
where unarmed people don't behave 100% compliant and get shot. This is a
really stressful situation for untrained people and professionals like cops
should be trained to take that into account. Some years ago I got T-boned
pretty hard by a car. Once the cops arrived, one of them gave me instructions
and I was simply not able to process them and did all kinds of stuff instead.
Thank god that cop was pretty nice and patient but I can totally understand
how people may do things against cops' instructions when they get confronted
by a SWAT team yelling at them.

------
jumbalaya2346
The cop that shot him was not part of the SWAT team, they arrived after the
murder.

[http://www.kwch.com/content/news/Preliminary-hearing-
starts-...](http://www.kwch.com/content/news/Preliminary-hearing-starts-for-
man-accused-of-making-deadly-swatting-call-483248831.html)

Here's a line from the article showing just how poorly trained cops are: "He
[Officer Justin Rapp] said he can’t answer whether he would have pulled the
trigger if he knew it was a swatting call."

------
jMyles
Somebody _murdered_ somebody else in cold blood, at the home of the latter.

The fact that the former had an anonymous, unauthenticated report is not
rightly even a part of this.

This is insane.

Yes, it sucks for the officer, because he was improperly trained to give a
great deal more credence to the 911 report, which in retrospect, was downright
trivial to fill with false information.

I don't think that the officer is 100% culpable, even though his person was
enlisted to commit this murder.

This is an obvious, huge vulnerability in society. Do we have a CVE for this?

~~~
echotango
This is the only comment that gets at the heart of the matter. I would add
that culpability is not zero sum. The shooter was 100% responsible, and the
others were also partially responsible.

------
jononor
A thought experiment: An unknown person calls my house and says that someone
is coming over now, and that the person has a gun. I get my own gun, and
crouch over my porch railing, ready. A person walks down the street towards my
house. Some 20 yards from my porch he reaches towards his pocket. I shoot him
dead, thinking he might have a gun. In reality he was gonna check Facebook on
his phone, and was in fact not even going to me at all. Would I be put on
trial in this case? Or is this obvious self defense? Would the person who made
call be put on trial for manslaughter?

~~~
insickness
You would be charged with manslaughter because this person never displayed any
type of threat. The severity of the punishment may be mitigated if you could
prove that you got the phone call but you are still responsible for what you
do, no matter what anyone tells you.

~~~
heyyyouu
That's not necessarily the case -- although it's one possibility. You could
also be charged with involuntary manslaugher or nothing depending on state and
local laws, what the prosecutor believes your state of mind is and, frankly,
the whim of the prosecutor and the strength of your defense attorneys.
Conversely, you could face a higher charge for exactly the same reasons.
There's what should happen -- which will vary according to local law, at least
in the US -- and then what will happen, which will vary significantly
depending on the DA.

------
dustingetz
Charge the officers and the entire chain of command

------
ceejayoz
I'm glad they caught these assholes, but I remain frustrated that the cop who
shot an unarmed, innocent man on nothing but someone's phoned-in say-so will
escape unscathed.

[http://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/swatting-fatal-
charges-k...](http://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/swatting-fatal-charges-
kansas-1202752232/)

------
teeray
What about the phone company's role in all this? Don't they share some
culpability for delivering spoofed information to a 911 operator? I understand
that their entire business is delivering calls, but for whatever reason that
911 operator thought the call was legit based off of the metadata they saw. I
feel like if they had a "hey this looks like a shady voip call" message on
their terminals, they could communicate that to the responding officers which
could have diminished their response.

I'm probably vastly simplifying the phone system, but if it doesn't hurt for
telcos too when this kind of abuse happens, they're not likely to help improve
the situation.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
I read the answer to that in an article a while back: the swatter did't call
911 directly, but instead called the security desk at city hall.

~~~
teeray
Ah, TIL. Any kind of additional metadata likely wouldn't have helped anyway.

------
rhynie
Most of these comments are insane. Probably not even people. Did any of you
listen to the 911 call and watch the video?
[http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html](http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html)

------
daxorid
I'm trying to understand how Gaskill is being charged, here.

He gave a different address to avoid being swatted himself. It is now
"conspiracy, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice" to exercise one's
instinct of self-preservation?

Can someone with a better handle of the law than myself explain how Gaskill's
actions are unlawful?

~~~
dresstotheleft
Sounds like he knew the address he gave was going to be swatted and
intentionally gave a valid address of someone else. A rational person would
have just not answered the question.

~~~
loeg
That's not what he was charged with, AFAICT. That would be manslaughter or
something along those lines, right? I think he's getting charged entirely for
the cover-up.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Apart from the other issues, one of the big things is that it is so easy to
spoof phone numbers. This has resulted in swatting, telemarketing, robo calls,
people pretending to call from the IRS, among other badness.

Email also used to have this problem, until the DKIM. Once email servers
started using DKIM, it became a lot easier to filter out spam and to exclude
the bad actors.

Maybe we should require some type of cryptographic verification on who
originated the call, and have that be visible. It would definitely make my
life a whole lot easier if I saw that a number that called me originated with
ATT Wireless vs "VOIP Warehouse".

Having a DKIM equivalent for phone calls would do a lot to tackle these type
of abuses.

------
mozumder
So, why weren't the police charged for opening fire on an unarmed civilian?

------
everyone
This is good doc about the increasing militancy of the police in the US.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcZ1HvdPEEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcZ1HvdPEEk)

------
ShabbosGoy
Why isn’t the cop getting punished at all?

------
jononor
And none of the charged are cops, who shot an unarmed man just walking out of
his house. Do not fire unless fired upon is common rule of engagement for
military operating under much more adverse conditions. If police cannot
respect the same, they should not be allowed to have guns. Right now they are
not even trying.

~~~
mjfl
Are you seriously suggesting that we disarm the police?

"Stop it right there, or I'll... I'll get really mad!"

~~~
mozumder
Yes.

The police, along with everyone else, should be disarmed. NOBODY should be
allowed to defend themselves with a gun. Guns should only be allowed for
hunting.

Are you seriously suggesting they shouldn't?

~~~
make3
also, is hunting that important? like, if that hobby is the only reason for
people to keep guns, I'm fine with sacrificing it so that no one has a reason
to have guns

~~~
15155
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America has
absolutely nothing to do with hunting.

The Federalist papers will enlighten you to the actual purpose of private arms
if you need.

~~~
mikepurvis
I don't disagree with you, but those are documents written over two centuries
ago, mostly about long guns, and at a time when it was suggested that the
federal standing army be no more than 30k troops.

The fact that these things are regularly trotted out as if they have anything
but the most peripheral relevance in discussions about things like handguns,
bump stocks, and silencers is nuts.

~~~
15155
At the time the Constitution was penned, almost all of our actual ordnance and
navy was privately owned. People had the right, ability, means to own cannonry
and mortars.

None of the intent behind the Second Amendment has changed. It's quite frankly
sad that to hear that people think so lowly of the Framers' intelligence to
foresee technological advances.

The Girandoni Air Rifle existed.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle)

The Framers couldn't extrapolate or imagine future technology? If you read the
original justification, private ownership of arms has everything to do with
individual liberty in spite of destructive capability.

~~~
mikepurvis
Given your deeper study of these things, I'd be delighted for your
participation in a brief thought experiment: If the framers could be brought
forward to the year 2018 and made to understand the facets of the current gun
debate, what do you think they would say?

Would they look at all the mass shooting deaths, suicides, law enforcement
killings, accidental discharges by children, road rage incidents, overseas
military adventurism, and the power and behaviour of entities like the NRA and
say to all of it, "Yup, that's pretty much what we envisioned for the future
of firearms in this country"? If not that, what kinds of common sense measures
do you think they might suggest as appropriate to tackle some of the worst of
the problem?

~~~
15155
> If the framers could be brought forward to the year 2018 and made to
> understand the facets of the current gun debate, what do you think they
> would say?

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of
patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

> mass shooting deaths

Statistically insignificant relative to any other cause of death in the
country.

> suicides

Not pertinent to this discussion: why should a suicidal person have any
bearing on _my_ rights?

> law enforcement killings

Do you know how few of these actually happen?

> accidental discharges by children

Sad, but statistically very rare.

> road rage incidents

??

> and the power and behaviour of entities like the NRA

I honestly believe the framers would be sad to see that such an organization
(albeit almost entirely member-funded - yay, democracy!) needs to exist in the
first place.

You can see that mentality in the fact that the Bill of Rights didn't exist at
the time the Constitution was written. The Framers believed rights existed
"naturally" \- far beyond those that were explicitly enumerated. They believed
that documenting individual liberties would cause the Bill of Rights to be
seen as an all-inclusive list.

I wouldn't go so far as to say our current situation is what the Framers
"envisioned," but I can say they would probably accept the costs of freedom,
whatever those may be.

~~~
mikepurvis
Suicides do have a real cost ([https://www.sprc.org/about-
suicide/costs](https://www.sprc.org/about-suicide/costs)), and it's worth
incorporating the reality of that into the larger framework that accounts for
the cost to society of having guns everywhere.

In any case, based on the "cost of freedom" remark, it's unlikely that we'll
be able to take the discussion much further in a productive way. Fortunately
for you the United States exists and is a good fit for your values, and
fortunately for me, I can live most other places in the developed world
without having to deal with it first hand.

~~~
15155
I posed this question in another thread, but I think it is interesting in
other people's perspectives:

As a citizen in the developed world, how do you defend yourself against
violence?

How would your (wife|husband|child|grandmother) defend theirselves?

I am not tough enough to physically fend off multiple violent aggressors,
unfortunately.

~~~
mikepurvis
How many scenarios are you likely to face in your life where it's necessary to
"fend off multiple violent aggressors"? Is it a statistically significant
number? How many of those are improved by the introduction of another firearm
vs. allowing the situation to run its course and catching the perpetrators
after the fact (which is how most of the developed world does, in fact, handle
it).

Even in the rare circumstance where there is a violent confrontation, most
people are not able to effectively wield a firearm and make the situation
better than it would have been without. That is, household guns for defensive
purposes are like driving an SUV— it's mostly about the _feeling_ of safety,
but the reality is that it's basically worse in every way than the
alternative.

~~~
15155
> Is it a statistically significant number

It's non-zero and happens quite frequently where I live. Not all of us are
privileged.

> How many of those are improved by the introduction of another firearm vs.
> allowing the situation to run its course and catching the perpetrators after
> the fact (which is how most of the developed world does, in fact, handle it

Meanwhile, the victim is raped or not alive to see this possible "justice."

What a fucking joke - I'll take my chances with a firearm instead. "Justice
after the fact" isn't acceptable to me, I'd rather stop the crime being
committed against me from happening.

> That is, household guns for defensive purposes are like driving an SUV— it's
> mostly about the feeling of safety, but the reality is that it's basically
> worse in every way than the alternative.

Just a moment ago you were a citizen of the "developed world," where firearms
apparently don't exist and violence doesn't happen, and now you understand how
"hard" it is to utilize and use firearms for one's protection? Really curious
as to where your knowledge comes from!

You never answered my question, either. You presupposed that these "situations
don't happen" as your argument. Should I just take this to mean the default
of: "I cannot protect myself or my family from violent individuals?"

------
mnm1
I blame the cop. Just because police are called doesn't mean someone needs to
get murdered. It's the police who bring the idea to the table to murder
someone. There's talk about gun control, yet I never hear anyone talking about
controlling police guns. That's the first step. Without even an attempt at
controlling police guns and power, there is no dialogue. The false report in
this case is secondary and hardly interesting when considering the main issue,
the police.

------
kraftman
Reminds me of the organ donor sketch from monty python, except real and
tragic.

------
pavel_lishin
The transcripts are just about killing me. A man is dead, and the two are
arguing the finer points of who trolled whom like a pair of high-school
freshman debaters.

------
dbg31415
Isn't the real issue here that the cops are all trigger happy? To me, that
feels like it should be the real issue.

~~~
ianamartin
Can't both issues be the real issue?

------
jkahrs595
The law can't come down hard enough on scum like this.

~~~
jessaustin
The solution to too much law enforcement is more law enforcement? Maybe we
should take a step back and consider the situation more deeply.

~~~
neom
The solution is probably fixing the education system and this mess of a
society we've built.

~~~
Andre_Wanglin
Why do you think the "education system" isn't working as intended?

~~~
neom
I do think it's working as intended, I think that's the problem, the
intentions are not good.

------
watty
What's with all the anti-law enforcement? They thought they were dealing with
a highly dangerous situation and individual. It's pretty easy to say they
should of handled it better as I sit here in the top floor of my corporate
office sipping La Croix but let's not forget that the caller was intentionally
putting others in dangerous situations.

~~~
lightbyte
>They thought they were dealing with a highly dangerous situation and
individual.

Are you saying hearsay from a random citizen is probable cause to go kill
someone? If that's the case than the police may as well advertise themselves
as the cheapest and easiest to use hitmen in the country.

~~~
zaphar
I am in no way excusing the kansas officers here. However this does bring up
an interesting point. To properly answer the question about "hearsay" you
would need to find out what percentage of 911 calls with details indicating a
need for a SWAT team are hoaxes. If the percentage is sufficiently low then
the officer may well have been primed by previous experience to expect
specific things during the call.

When someone is used to working with accurate information and is then fed
inaccurate information from that same source then you can predict the results
pretty accurately.

------
rhacker
I'm sorry but the people in this thread that ONLY want to blame the cops are
damn idiotic. IF you had someone SWAT you and your mother or father died,
would you really ONLY be mad at the cops?

Let me put it another way too - a swatting call is now rated at giving someone
a 1/5000 chance they are GOING TO DIE when the police show up. I definitely
think someone knowingly doing that to someone else deserves severe punishment.

~~~
jumbalaya2346
No one here is ONLY blaming the cops. Nice strawman you're throwing up.

The fact is the cop (Justin Rapp) was not punished at all, and has been on
paid vacation.

------
matte_black
Don't even try to blame this on the law enforcement.

~~~
ceejayoz
Modern [edit: _American_ ] law enforcement training puts so much priority on
the safety of officers that it results in the deaths of unarmed innocents in
this manner.

> The reality was that Finch was unarmed and that nearly every officer on the
> scene never saw him raise his hand with a gun in it. Several reported that
> they didn’t fire because they didn’t see a gun. At least one officer said
> that when he saw Finch dropping his hands to his waistband and pull them
> back up he remembered thinking, “that’s not a good idea. . . don’t be
> lifting, tugging at your waistband.”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop)
is a good read.

Another example of how horrifyingly bad this sort of "everyone's a threat"
training is can be seen in the disturbing video of Daniel Shaver's execution.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2017/12/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2017/12/08/graphic-video-shows-daniel-shaver-sobbing-and-begging-
officer-for-his-life-before-2016-shooting/)

It's hard to watch.

~~~
alkonaut
> Modern law enforcement training puts so much priority on the safety of
> officers that it results in the deaths of unarmed innocents in this manner.

No it doesn't. But contemporary american law enforcement training sure appears
to.

~~~
ceejayoz
A fair point. Edited to add.

