
Three Men Charged in ‘Swatting’ Schemes - anigbrowl
https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/three-men-charged-swatting-schemes-which-admitted-hoax-maker-targeted-individuals
======
specialp
The main perpetrator whom gave up his friends Tyler Rai Barriss actually did
cause the death of someone in Kansas by "Swatting" them. He then was
completely unapologetic. These new indictments are after he accepted a plea
deal for 20-25 years in federal prison.

Here is his twitter:
[https://twitter.com/goredtutor36?lang=en](https://twitter.com/goredtutor36?lang=en).
He boasted about swatting people and somehow got internet access in prison and
posted his latest post.

[https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-tyler-barriss-
swat...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-tyler-barriss-
swatting-20180106-story.html)

~~~
Memosyne
According to a police statement regarding the 2017 Wichita Swatting event:

"Officers gave [the victim] several verbal commands to put his hands up and
walk towards them. The male complied for a very short time and then put his
hands back down to his waist. The officers continued to give him verbal
commands to put his hands up, and he lowered them again." [1]

I'm not well informed on the subject, but wouldn't equipping tactical teams
with non-lethal weapons have prevented tragedies like this? The moment a team
feels uneasy, they should feel free to stun the suspect. I know electroshock
weapons have their own risks, but surely they aren't greater than firing a
dude acting suspiciously with a live round from a Colt AR-15?

1\.
[https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.htm...](https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html)

~~~
djsumdog
This is just the audio of the swatter though, right?

I don't think there's any video of the actual incident is there?

Maybe the dude didn't understand what the big deal was and kept dropping his
hands? Someone probably jumped the gun?

I wonder if that team had non-lethal weapons and just didn't get them out. If
he didn't have a firearm, a beanbag rifle could have ended this much
differently.

~~~
shalmanese
We have to get into the mindset that police reports are _fundamentally_
untrustworthy sources of information.

We have enough evidence accumulated over the years to make it abundantly clear
that police reports are primarily about constructing a narrative that absolves
police of culpability and secondarily about describing the true nature of an
event.

Police reports read individually all sound individually reasonable but read as
a collective describe a world that is fantastical. For example, the number of
young black men who were "reaching towards their waistbands" at the moment
they get shot even though they were carrying no weapons simply beggars any
rational explanation. Similarly, "put his hands back down to his waist" is
another police magic phrase that is conveniently unfalsifiable and also
absolves the shooting officer of any liability.

~~~
RickJWagner
No, I disagree.

We need to change society back to the point where people are decent and don't
fool around with public resources like cops.

First responders are life-saving. Mis-using them is seriously anti-social
behavior. That's what needs to be changed.

~~~
aspaceman
A bunch of trigger happy folks with guns are not "first responders". Big
difference between paramedics and folks who just want an excuse to shoot
people.

------
hermitdev
Several things need to be done.

These idiots should be charged with something along the lines of conspiracy to
commit murder.

The phone system needs to be updated to prevent apoofing of numbers. I know it
jas its reasons for corporate exchanges and whatnot, but safety outweighs
that. A Telco should be able to uniquely identify precisely who made a call.

Along the way: no blocked numbers on caller ID. I dont answer a blocked
number, anyway, but you shouldn't be able to hide.

~~~
aharrison
I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held
accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips. If we
are going to start talking about fixing this issue, I'm not sure getting rid
of blocked numbers is going to materially impact these outcomes.

Likewise, what is your recommendation on eliminating the threat of burner
phones?

~~~
chipperyman573
>I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held
accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips

I think the logic behind this is that if the tip was correct then trying to
talk it out/etc could end much worse for everyone involved. You have to
remember that, to the best of the officer's knowledge, there is a live hostage
in a building somewhere that needs to be saved by them

~~~
LanceH
There is no "best of the officer's knowleedge", though. They have zero
knowledge of the situation. They have an unsourced phone call. They know
exactly that one person has made a claim on the phone and too often they don't
bother looking past that and it is completely reckless.

I can't even conceive of the same thing happening in the military (been there,
done that). "We got a call the enemy is in that build." "suit up, we'll go
in." "how about we watch the building for a minute?" "Naw..."

~~~
Haga
At the end of the day you will always want to go home more than follow the
law. Americas weapon laws put everyone postcall in a defacto civil war zone.
In war zones the law, civil conventions and concepts collapse. Its your tribe
vs the others. Quite frankly for this situation americas swats are remarkable
civil.

Ps: the military has its own track record on fire first and then sort them out
later. They blew up whole towns in Iraq for one sniper-with everyone on it. So
bad example. The watch and wait often only happens in spy movies. In reality
it's protect our boys preemptive at all costs. If one dies you have alot more
to answer for then 40-50 locals die. Those can be labeled asymmetric after
exitus. And quite frankly theire surviving relatives thirsty for revenge will
cover your war crime up. One week later that sleepy town ruin is a Hotspot.

------
hate
I've confronted these types of people many times in the past. They're usually
quite childish. If anything, they probably thought it was humorous. Things
like this happen all the time with content creators and it won't stop anytime
soon. Many people contact authorities beforehand to whitelist their address
but I'm unsure if it's effective.

I've also heard about pets that get murdered for having vicious tendencies in
the victims household. How sad...

------
nostromo
Shouldn’t local law enforcement do a little more triage before sending in
paramilitaristic swat teams?

How many hostage situations actually happen in middle class boring suburbs
such that a single unverified call turns into a full blown swat response?

~~~
anjellow
I'd assume in any situation where a swat team is necessary, 5 minutes of
triage would drastically decrease effectiveness.

~~~
c0nducktr
Ok that still lands on the police force, as they're the one's to determine
that a SWAT team is required.

------
Buge
Twitter names @internetlord @defeat @tragic and @spared

Those seem like some pretty high value names. Although internetlord and tragic
don't look like what I'd expect a swatter's account to look like. They don't
appear very popular or active so saying they're "known by" those names seems a
little strange.

Also strange how much more valuable those look compared to the mastermind's
twitter names swautistic and goredtutor36 .

~~~
siruncledrew
swautistic is the most fitting name of the bunch.

------
anonytrary
Abusing the protection system like this should be life in prison. This is one
of those things you don't fuck with. When you're 6 years old and call 911
because you don't know any better, that's one thing. These kids are 23 and 19,
etc. and they understand the potential consequences of their actions, but they
continued to act anyway.

------
nope96
A developer in the Bitcoin community got swatted. He wrote up an extremely
detailed (and unrealistic IMO) guide on how to avoid it & stay private online
as a public figure -

[https://medium.com/s/story/a-modest-privacy-protection-
propo...](https://medium.com/s/story/a-modest-privacy-protection-
proposal-5b47631d7f4c)

------
nasseri
I will say that there is a lot of pessimism in these threads which may be
warranted, but it is good to see the judicial system beginning to take these
people to task. Laws and regulations often move slower than we would like,
especially when lives are at stake, but I remember years of this type of stuff
going unpunished. This is a step in the right direction.

------
R0uterR00ter
there are 2 problems i see with the swatting issue.

1] obvious, but the mentality of self elevated importance, and attachment of
personal loss with a game [combatsimulator] that primes a person into an
aggressive mentality.

2] there is no carrot and stick for LEO's. There is qualified immunity from
prosecution, ideally this prevents a cop or other responder from being sued
for adverse results, of acting "whithin legal authority" and "as a reasonable
person"

The end result is No Consequences fro screwing up under the veil of legal
authority and reasonable actions. This veil has been stretched so thin that it
is starting to breakdown, as there are now LEO and other responders actually
doing some prison time, vs 15 years ago when police were heavily militarized
and 911 was fresh in our heads; when any degree of force was legitimate to
intercept domestic threats.

