Authorities arrested a 25-year old California man in connection with a “swatting” prank call that led to the death of an innocent 28-year old man from Kansas. Authorities say the 28-year old man was shot and killed by SWAT officers when they showed up to his Kansas home responding to a call that a man had his family help captive inside at gunpoint.
The Huffington Post (@huffpost) reports, Tyler Barriss (pictured in photo) was taken into custody Friday in Los Angeles on suspicion of making up a story about a shooting and hostage situation at a Wichita, Kansas address halfway across the Country. ABC Los Angeles reported that a man by the same name was arrested back in 2015 for almost the same thing. In that incident it was for making a prank bomb threat. It’s not clear yet if that was the same Tyler Barriss, chances are, it is.
Relatives identified the deceased 28-year old man as Andrew Finch, who police confirm was unarmed. Deputy Wichita police Chief Troy Livingston said the incident was the result of “swatting”, a type of hoax associated with online gamers, where someone makes up a story and makes an emergency call designed to draw large numbers of police to a specific address. In this call, the caller claimed to be a man who said that he had just shot his father in the head because of an argument he had with his mother. The caller claimed to be holding his mother and siblings hostage. He also said he was considering dousing the home with gasoline and setting the place on fire.
Mr. Finch opened the door to a swarm of police shortly before they arrived. Livingston said officers repeatedly gave him verbal commands to raise his hands and walk toward them, officers say Finch lowered his hands. And you know the rest. A man who was clearly surprised to see a large police presence outside of his house when he hadn’t done anything wrong, and a bunch of cops juiced up on adrenaline from the depths of a reported hostage situation, is always the recipe for a disaster. That’s exactly what happened here. A senseless disaster.
The incident and subsequent call, is reportedly the result over an argument during an online game of “Call Of Duty” between two players. Here’s the crazy part…..Mr. Finch had nothing to do with the argument at all. Mr. Finch didn’t even play video games. What happened was, the two arguing parties took their online beef to Twitter. After calling each other out, one man gave the other his address…..which wasn’t actually his address. It was the address of Mr. Finch, who the man did not even know. From there, the other gamer figured that he would get his revenge by having the other gamer’s house “swatted”, leading to the death of Mr. Finch……an innocent man.
NAYZE MEDIA 