Man behind fatal Call of Duty ‘swatting’ gets 20-year prison sentence
polygon.com
polygon.com
Remember kids: Don‘t use emergency services, they might get someone killed.
The danger that hoaxes inherently present, and that ignoring potential hoaxes also presents, means that hoaxers must be deterred.
This guy is sentenced to 20 years in prison for what he probably perceived as a 'prank call' at the time. That's insane!
The SWATer absolutely shares responsibility for their death, even if they don't hold sole responsibility. 20 years seems like an appropriate sentence to me.
I agree that murder may be an excessive charge given lack of intent, yet in the United States murder is often broadened to include committing a serious crime (felony) where there is a clear danger of killing someone, and it resulted in death. Then again, I would argue that this goes well beyond just a 'prank call' in that there is intent to specifically victimise someone by deceiving armed agents.
In a country with 300 million privately owned firearms, if the police receive a call ostensibly from a hostage-taker threatening to murder several people, they're going to respond in a much different manner than if you call for medical assistance.
This is why SWATing is so pernicious. We let basically anyone buy seriously dangerous weapons up to and including assault/battle rifles, let all of our police match firepower, and then dramatically underfund mental health services such that murder and hostage-taking is a regular occurrence. Just a stellar combination for internet 'pranksters' to exploit.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/15/18096749/call-of-duty-swa...
"Barriss pleaded guilty to 46 counts" and who knows how many others not presented in court. Surprised he wasn't banned access to electronic devices and phones.
The fact that he pleaded guilty suggests to me that the collection of lesser charges were part of a plea bargain, with prosecutors not confident about pioneering swatting as a murder case.
Murder (including felony murder) itself (except in special contexts and locations that don't apply here) is not a federal crime. This was a federal prosecution.
The only issue is whether there is federal jurisdiction over the murder. As the crime resulting in the killing was deemed to be within federal jurisdiction, that would seem to imply such a murder was within federal jurisdiction.
https://www.wklaw.com/10-ways-murder-becomes-a-federal-crime... Item 5 of this list states that the federal crime of bank robbery can be promoted to federal murder under the same section I listed. This would suggest to me that this killing could also be federal murder.
Yes, kind of; there is a separate provision for that, 18 USC § 1114, which applies the punishments in 18 USC § 1111 (for murder), 18 USC § 1112 (for manslaughter), and 18 USC § 1113 (for attempts at either murder or manslaughter) to such acts committee against federal officials independent of the jursidictional limitations in those statutes.
> Item 5 of this list states that the federal crime of bank robbery can be promoted to federal murder under the same section I listed.
Insofar as robbery is a qualifying offense under 18 USC 1111(a), that would appear to be technically correct if the jurisdictional requirements in 18 USC 1111(b) were met, but is not actually the general felony murder rule, which does not exist in federal law, but an analog covering only enumerated offenses written directly into the 18 USC 1111(a) definition of murder and still only applicable where 18 USC 1111(b) or some other statute provides a federal punishment for murder. More importantly, for killings in the course of bank robbery more generally, there is a separate provisions making that a capital offense without reference to 18 USC § 1111, within the bank robbery law (18 USC § 2113), the killing (and hostage taking) provision is subsection (e); that's mostly how felony-murder like rules are applied in federal criminal law, by specific punishment for killing accompanying the predicate offense.