Lethal Swatter Getting 20 Years Behind Bars

Way back in 2017, a swatting attempt gone wrong (as if they ever go right) resulted in the death of an innocent man, 28-year-old Andrew Finch. The man responsible, Tyler Barriss, has been in and out of court for the past year and a half, both for this incident and for others, as he had a long history of fraudulent bomb threats and swatting attempts. And now, after pleading guilty of 51 federal changes, he received his sentence: 20 long years in prison.

The incident that kicked this off was when Barriss, was actually dared by a man named Casey Viner to send a SWAT team after Shane Gaskill of Wichita, Kansas, as Viner had recently played a game of Call of Duty with Shane and he was, apparently, very unhappy with how it turned out. So Viner found Shane and asked him where he lived, and Gaskill, who obviously had no idea that someone was trying to SWAT him, gave them an old address for a place he used to live, which was currently being occupied by Andrew Finch. SWAT officers were called, Andrew Finch opened the door, and was shot dead when he reached for his waistband. The assaulting officer was cleared of all charges.

Viner and Shane are still awaiting trial on charges for their part in the incident, although I’m really not sure how they could blame Shane for it, giving away false addresses online seems logical enough and it’s not as if he was aware he was going to get swatted.

Typically, if you’re caught swatting, it’s around ten years in prison at most, but this was the first time an incident had resulted in a death, so the Judge decided to add ten more years to the normal max sentence. Which seems fair from where I’m sitting.

It’s unknown if he’s going to be expedited to Canada to face charges there for harassing women.