Thursday, November 15, 2018

SWATTING

Swatting is the recent mischief of placing a hoax call to police, telling them that an horrific crime is being committed, and then watching the mayhem from another location.  It's a despicable act, placing both the police and the people at the called-in address in great danger.

As a cop, when you respond to one of these call and "go in hot",  adrenaline pumping, hopefully someone is able to figure out quickly that it was a hoax call and no one gets hurt.    But, sometimes things go horribly wrong.  Like in this case in Witchita KS.
Most of the time, the police respond and figure out that nothing was going on before anyone gets hurt, but it doesn’t always happen that way.
Now, a man responsible for a fatal swatting call has pled guilty to 51 charges stemming from his actions.
Fifty-one charges?  That prosecutor was busy in the books.  I can think of a half-dozen charges I could cite for making a prank call that resulted in a death, but 51?  And as a part of a plea deal, I wonder how many charges they dropped?
 Prosecuting U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister told The Wichita Eagle he will recommend that Barriss be sentenced to 20 years in prison, providing he writes apology letters to police, dispatchers and the family of Andrew Finch, a 28-year-old father of two who was shot by police who responded to the hoax call in December.
Twenty years is a long time.  He'll get lots of time to think about the consequences of his actions.

3 comments:

Judy said...

It went FED!? Wow!

Carl "Bear" Bussjaeger said...

" I can think of a half-dozen charges I could cite for making a prank call that resulted in a death, but 51?"

Those charges covered far more than the Kansas incident. It included Swatting and bomb threats in 18 states and DC. He was a busy little scumbag.

Judy said...

If that's the case, then string-him-up. Don't waste my tax dollars on incarcerating him.