Federal prosecutors have charged three men with carrying out a deadly hoax known as “swatting,” in which perpetrators call or message a target’s local 911 operators claiming a fake hostage situation or a bomb threat in progress at the target’s address — with the expectation that local police may respond to the scene with deadly force. While only one of the three men is accused of making the phony call to police that got an innocent man shot and killed, investigators say the other two men’s efforts to taunt and deceive one another ultimately helped point the gun. According to prosecutors, the tragic hoax started with a dispute over a match in the online game “Call of Duty.” The indictment says Shane M. Gaskill, a 19-year-old Wichita, Kansas resident, and Casey S. Viner, 18, had a falling out over a $1.50 game wager. Viner allegedly wanted to get back at Gaskill, and so enlisted the help of another man — Tyler R. Barriss — a serial swatter known by the alias “SWAuTistic” who’d bragged of “swatting” hundreds of schools and dozens of private residences. The federal indictment references transcripts of alleged online chats among the three men. In an exchange on Dec. 28, 2017, Gaskill taunts Barriss on Twitter after noticing that Barriss’s Twitter account (@swattingaccount) had suddenly started following him. Viner and Barriss both allegedly say if Gaskill isn’t scared of getting swatted, he should give up his home address. But the address that Gaskill gave Viner to pass on to Barriss no longer belonged to him and was occupied by a new tenant. Barriss allegedly then called the emergency 911 operators in Wichita and said he was at the address provided by Viner, that he’d just shot his father in the head, was holding his mom and sister at gunpoint, and was thinking about burning down the home with everyone inside. Wichita police quickly responded to the fake hostage report and surrounded the address given by Gaskill. Seconds later, 28-year-old Andrew Finch exited his mom’s home and was killed by a single shot from a Wichita police officer. Finch, a father of two, had no party to the gamers’ dispute and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just minutes after the fatal shooting, Barriss — who is in Los Angeles — is allegedly anxious to learn if his Kansas swat attempt was successful. Someone has just sent Barriss a screenshot of a conversation between Viner and Gaskill mentioning police at Gaskill’s home and someone getting killed. So Barriss allegedly then starts needling Gaskill via instant message:
Prosecutors say Barriss then posted a screen shot showing the following conversation between Viner and Gaskill:
Barriss and Gaskill then allegedly continued their conversation:
Later on the evening of Dec. 28, after news of the fatal swatting started blanketing the local television coverage in Kansas, Gaskill allegedly told Barriss to delete their previous messages. “Bape” in this conversation refers to a nickname allegedly used by Casey Viner:
The indictment also features chat records between Viner and others in which he admits to his role in the deadly swatting attack. In the follow chat excerpt, Viner was allegedly talking with someone identified only as “J.D.”
Barriss is charged with multiple counts of making false information and hoaxes; cyberstalking; threatening to kill another or damage property by fire; interstate threats, conspiracy; and wire fraud. Viner and Gaskill were both charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. A copy of the indictment is available here. The Associated Press reports that the most serious charge of making a hoax call carries a potential life sentence because it resulted in a death, and that some of the other charges carry sentences of up to 20 years. As I told the AP, swatting has been a problem for years, but it seems to have intensified around the time that top online gamers started being able to make serious money playing games online and streaming those games live to thousands or even tens of thousands of paying subscribers. Indeed, Barriss himself had earned a reputation as someone who delighted in watching police kick in doors behind celebrity gamers who were live-streaming. This case is not the first time federal prosecutors have charged multiple people in the same swatting attacks even if only one person was involved in actually making the phony hoax calls to police. In 2013, my home was the target of a swatting attack that thankfully ended without incident. The government ultimately charged four men — several of whom were minors at the time — with conducting that swat attack as well as many others they’d perpetrated against public figures and celebrities. But despite spending considerable resources investigating those crimes, prosecutors were able to secure only light punishments for those involved in the swatting spree. One of those men, a serial swatter and cyberstalker named Mir Islam, was sentenced to to just one year in jail for his role in multiple swattings. Another individual who was part of that group — Eric “Cosmo the God” Taylor — got three years of probation. Something tells me Barriss, Gaskill and Viner aren’t going to be so lucky. Barriss has admitted his role in many swattings, and he admitted to his last, fatal swatting in an interview he gave to KrebsOnSecurity less than 24 hours after Andrew Finch’s murder — saying he was not the person who pulled the trigger. from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/05/3-charged-in-fatal-kansas-swatting-attack/
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
ABOUT MEHi my name is Anthony I am 32 years old from Houston. I am working in local store selling electronic devices. I have been interested in eclectronics since childhood and I like to reacd about it. Archives
April 2019
Categories |