Man Pleads Guilty to 'Swatting' Hoax That Resulted in a Fatal Shooting
A California man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to making dozens of hoax phone calls during which he reported fake crimes, including one high-profile call last year that resulted in another man in Wichita, Kan., being fatally shot by a police officer.
Under a plea agreement, the caller, Tyler Barriss, 25, of Los Angeles, will serve between 20 and 25 years in prison for making the false reports by phone, a practice known as swatting.
Prosecutors say that in addition to initiating the swatting episode in Kansas — where he entered his plea on Tuesday — Mr. Barriss made dozens of other, similar calls to emergency and law enforcement agencies across the country during which he falsely reported bomb threats, active shootings and other criminal activity at high schools, shopping malls and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
No one was injured or killed as a result of those calls. It was the Wichita episode — for which Mr. Barriss pleaded guilty to cyberstalking, conspiracy and making a false report resulting in a death — that drew attention to the potentially deadly consequences of swatting. Under the agreement, he also pleaded guilty to dozens of other charges out of California and Washington, D.C., related to swatting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/barriss-swatting-wichita.html
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