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Dishing out the justice.
Kyleran
Member LegendaryPosts: 43,498
While no amount of punishment will bring the victim's family any relief, perhaps it will send a strong message to those who consider doing this to think again.
Turns out this douche was a "serial swatter," such a weird world we live in.
"26-year-old California resident Tyler Barriss has been sentenced to 20 years in prison today after pleading guilty to placing a swatting call that led to the death of a 28-year-old father of two in Kansas."
"Barriss was apparently known as a "serial swatter" according to his attorney, having swatted others before and had other cases filed against him in California and the District of Columbia, though none of these previous swatting calls resulted in a death. However, this as well as a history of calling in bomb threats caused prosecutors to add 46 new charges to his case in October of last year."
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-03-29-man-responsible-for-fatal-swatting-call-sentenced-to-20-years
Turns out this douche was a "serial swatter," such a weird world we live in.
"26-year-old California resident Tyler Barriss has been sentenced to 20 years in prison today after pleading guilty to placing a swatting call that led to the death of a 28-year-old father of two in Kansas."
"Barriss was apparently known as a "serial swatter" according to his attorney, having swatted others before and had other cases filed against him in California and the District of Columbia, though none of these previous swatting calls resulted in a death. However, this as well as a history of calling in bomb threats caused prosecutors to add 46 new charges to his case in October of last year."
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-03-29-man-responsible-for-fatal-swatting-call-sentenced-to-20-years
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Comments
already been threads about this on the Main page
This is why you don't do stupid shit or be a shitty person, in person or over the internet.
EDIT: Also we should remember that he had already swatted multiple times and apparently no official decided it was dangerous enough that he should be imprisoned immediately.
Giving a harsher sentence now would be like "We knew what you were doing and could have prevented it, but we didn't understand how dangerous it was either, so now we're going to take vengeance on you because it'll make us feel better". It's not a solution. The solution is to learn from our mistake and stop the next swatter sooner.
Meanwhile, this doesn't strike me as the sort of crime that will have a high risk of recidivism. Even if he gets paroled after 10 years, he's unlikely to think it was worth it, and let's go do it again. Now that he has a criminal record and is known to authorities to be a swatter, it would be much harder to get away with it next time.
If recidivism were the primary issue (lock him up so that he can't do it again), then parole after some years with restrictions that the authorities can record every phone call he makes would handle that. If he gets caught evading the restrictions, even for an innocent call, that's a parole violation, so lock him up for the rest of the 20 years.
That leaves only the question of whether the demands of retributive justice calls for a harsher penalty. There, I'd say that 20 years is enough, but would respect that someone else might disagree.
I think this will set a precedent that will certainly discourage future swatters. It's no longer a consequence-free shitty behavior anymore, and you could literally lose 1/5th of your entire life to federal prison for doing it. If others believe there's a good chance they'll be caught when doing it, I don't think many will believe it worth the trouble.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I would be bricking it.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
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Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the police officer mishandled the situation. But that relies on knowing what we know now and he didn't know in the heat of the moment. When you're thrust into a situation where you know that you might have to shoot someone quickly to save the life of another, innocent person, you're going to be on edge. Put enough people into that sort of situation often enough and they'll make some mistakes--whether shooting an innocent person or acting too slowly to prevent a criminal from murdering someone. That's something that soldiers sometimes have to deal with when fighting wars, too.
In a situation like that, it would be very hard to build a criminal case against the police officer who shot the guy. Maybe he could be fired for being bad at his job, but you shouldn't prosecute someone for making a good-faith effort to do a tough job as best as he can. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details of the case or standard police procedures to know if he should have been (or was) fired.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
You know what, people who premeditate and kill deserve death not long imprisonments. I am for the death penalty for people who commit murder but this fella is a serial swatter and he knew what he was doing and the risks involved. He deserves what he got and he should go in longer in my opinion. Like I said the crimes you mentioned deserve death.
Also every time you get behind a wheel of car and hold a phone and don't pay attention or get drunk and drive, these people all manage to take away innocent lives and don't nearly get punished enough.
The swatter called a Wichita PD non-emergency line from VoiP in Los Angeles, who then transferred him to 911. 911 had no gps on the call, but showed a Wichita call origination since their call came in from the municipal offices.
The swatter gave a Wichita address, and when asked by 911 to describe the home, specifically said it was a single-story house. The actual home they arrived at was 2 stories. While officers were surrounding the home, and apparently before anyone took charge of the scene, instructed the officers, or tried to make contact inside, the homeowner noticed the commotion outside and opened his front door to see what was going on, was shouted at by a bunch of cops and freaked out a bit, and was shot once through the heart.
However, I think it would've been fairly obvious the man was confused as he exited the home at their request, and simply seeing his hands go up and down doesn't seem (to me) to be sufficient action to open fire on someone.
Assuming they had weapons drawn and aimed, the guy would've had to been a former special forces operative to have a realistic chance of drawing, aiming, and firing in any kind of accurate manner before a trained officer with his gun pointed at the suspect opened fire. Even then, if the officer doesn't have poor reaction time, he should be able to fire upon the suspect before the suspect is able to fire an accurate round and, indeed, likely before the suspect was able to fire at all.
At present, police are trained any movement not expressly commanded by them can damn near be seen as a commitment to violence. That's a little far-fetched in my mind.
EDIT- that said, I don't condemn the officer as much as I condemn the social climate and training given by the police department to that officer. By and large, officers have been trained to carry too itchy a trigger finger. Considering the facts of the case don't even say he was reaching for a pocket or his waist (says he merely "stopped" raising his hands before raising them all the way up), I find it hard to believe they truly should've felt he was attempting to pull a weapon. EDIT2- sorry, it appears the cops claimed he reached for his waistband. The man's mother claims he did not, but merely stopped raising his hands short of placing them above his head.
When it actually does kill someone, then it's manslaughter. That will get you some years in prison right there.
That the culprit had a history of doing this and this just happened to be the first time it killed anyone surely justified a stiffer sentence than if it was the first time he had ever tried this.