
“Swatter” Tyler Barriss Charged with Involuntary Manslaughter - robin_reala
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/01/serial-swatter-tyler-swautistic-barriss-charged-with-involuntary-manslaughter/
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fab13n
Seen from Europe, this is ludicrous. __Police __killed that guy. Swating as a
prank is possible in the US because of US police 's hysteria. And it's police
hysteria that escalated a nasty prank into homicide--if not murder.

[EDIT for clarity]: it's ludicrous that prankster and police officer aren't
_both_ charged. Police incompetence is no exoneration of Tyler's
responsibility, and conversely, Tyler's criminal actions are no excuse for the
police officer's lethal lack of judgement/restraint. Of course Tyler is a
criminal, I thought it went without saying.[/EDIT]

The core problem is that it's OK for US police to kill US citizens, and it's
essential not to shift the blame. By primarily blaming Tyler (who's a super-
nasty piece of shit, but that's another issue), medias and justice reinforce
bad police officers' sentiment of impunity.

In most developed countries, if a cop shoots someone who wasn't actually about
to kill someone, he's criminally liable. His career is over, and his freedom
in jeopardy. If he wrongly "felt threatened", that's poor judgment and
incompetence, certainly not an excuse. And whether the victim was guilty of
anything or not isn't a mitigating factor either: it's exclusively up to the
justice to say so and to punish. That's why Judge Dredd isn't called Copper
Dredd.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_By primarily blaming Tyler (who 's a super-nasty piece of shit, but that's
another issue_

No, that is absolutely not another issue. If we don't hold people responsible
for misusing these resources, there simply is no remedy here. SWAT teams
cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-
called _prank._

Pranks are generally fucked up shit anyway. Pranks that can turn deadly so
easily should not be called _pranks._ They should be labeled _serious crimes_
and prosecuted accordingly.

Furthermore, I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know
what is best for internal matters of the US and that policies that work in
their country would obviously work exactly the same here. If your country
works better than the US, good for you. That isn't evidence that you know what
is best for the US.

~~~
fab13n
> SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage
> situation and a so-called prank.

Yes they should, and they are in the rest of the world. Being a competent
police officer is not supposed to be an easy job, and not everyone has what it
takes to be trusted amid civilians with deadly weapons.

> Pranks [...] should be labelled serious crimes and prosecuted accordingly.

That is also true, but not the #1 priority. Most unnecessary uses of deadly
force by police aren't triggered by pranks. I sure expect Tyler to rot in jail
for quite some time, I'd be mad if he weren't. Ditto for the wannabe Dirty
Harry who killed a civilian he swore to serve and protect. The thing is, I'm
confident the former will happen, and I fear the latter won't.

> I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best
> for internal matters of the US

What baffles me is that even when a problem is solved in all of the non-US
developed world, looking at how it's solved by everyone else isn't considered
worth debating in the US. Or as the Onion puts it every few months, when a US
mass shooting occurs:

[https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-
na...](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-
this-r-1819580358)

~~~
thisacctforreal
There isn't a clear set of policies that will put an end to mass shootings, at
least not without overhauls in the current interpretation of the US
constitution.

America Uncovered (same crew as China Uncensored) made a pretty-balanced video
on the topic
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=hAtLnTyimT0](https://youtube.com/watch?v=hAtLnTyimT0)

------
apexalpha
"Police responding to the alert surrounded the home at the address Barriss
provided and shot 28-year old Andrew Finch as he emerged from the doorway of
his mother’s home. Finch, a father of two, was unarmed, and died shortly after
being shot by police."

I'm sorry but this whole article is ridiculous. Yes, calling the police on
someone for jokes is absolutely not okay, and he deserves punishment for it.
But it seems very farfetched, and honestly pretty insane, that the police
murdering an unarmed man is something you should consider happening when you
call the police.

The police have the guns, they are responsible for using them. Whether the
call is a hoax or not, the police should not kill anyone unless they
absolutely have no other choice. If someone is unarmed this is obviously not
the case.

It is ridiculous that this article tries to frame some idiot for murder /
manslaughter. The police killed the guy. No one else.

~~~
cornyNetHandle
They both killed the guy. The guy lied with the intent to get heavily armed
people to point guns at someone. Anyone who does this and tries to claim that
they couldn't possibly know that the risk is deadly, is either lying or lacks
basic reasoning skills.

~~~
linuxkerneldev
> They both killed the guy.

A good way to check logic is to test the statements against other scenarios.

> The guy lied with the intent to get heavily armed people to point guns at
> someone.

What if we apply your reasoning to politicians that lied in order to enable
invasions of other countries? Does that mean they also committed mass murder
and war crimes? If no, then please explain what is the difference? If yes,
then why are the politicians not charged?

What if we apply your reasoning to the same exact scenario but instead of it
having been false, this was where there was an actual armed attack and a
victim had been made to open the door and then been shot within seconds by the
policeman? In that scenario, would you not say that the policeman had
committed an act of murder or at least gross negligence leading to murder?

~~~
cornyNetHandle
Some politicians are guilty of mass murder and war crimes under exactly the
circumstance you give. And part of the reason those from more powerful
countries are not charged is they have made every effort to put themselves
above international law. For instance, Bush Jr signed the Hague Invasion Act -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
Members%27_Pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
Members%27_Protection_Act) \- to guard against this very risk.

edit - And in your second scenario, that would be negligence causing a
homicide. It wouldn't be murder unless there was an intent to kill the
hostage.

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andrewksl
Uh, not that this guy doesn't deserve to be charged, but what about the cop
who shot an innocent, unarmed man?

~~~
trowawee
There'll be an investigation, he'll be cleared, and he'll be back on the
street in a few months.

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JamesBaxter
My perspective from the U.K. is that it’s primarily the swatters fault but the
terrible action taken by the police is somewhat “allowed” by US society due to
fear of guns being available.

I was trying to figure out how prevalent swatting is in the U.K. and if it
could go this wrong. At least here the police don’t have to be as afraid of an
armed defence which gives them less of an excuse for overreacting

~~~
pjc50
I've found a Brit involved in a US swatting:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/robert-
mcdaid...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/robert-mcdaid-
charged-tyran-dobbs-swatting-hoax-call-swat-terrorism-maryland-shot-gun-
explosives-a7677071.html)

And someone swatted Mumsnet: [https://www.newstatesman.com/sci-
tech/2015/08/troll-hacked-m...](https://www.newstatesman.com/sci-
tech/2015/08/troll-hacked-mumsnet-and-sent-armed-police-founders-house)

But generally the lack of trigger-happy police makes it much less likely in
the UK. I suspect a lot of protocol was built up in the era of regular (most,
but not all false) bomb threats from the IRA.

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HenryBemis
I hope he gets the maximum sentence. Then I hope they dig up as much as
possible of his past dirt and then lock him up forever. Then I hope they round
up more SWATters and give them the same treatment.

I won't go into to details of what will happen to this wimp behind bars, he
doesn't look so tough.

But it cannot be that some stupid "kid" somewhere murders people for fun.

(no use to discuss police and use of arms in the USA)

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bb88
I said that's what he should get two weeks ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16057578](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16057578)

