Andrew Finch was the innocent victim of a deadly prank call made from 1,300 miles away that prompted police in Kansas to storm his home and shoot him to death.
The hoax, known as “swatting,” involves making a false emergency call in an effort to get a SWAT team to respond. It apparently worked.
Authorities said Tyler Barriss, 25, the man suspected of making the fatal “swatting” call, has a history of volatile behavior, NBC News reported, including at least 20 similar prank calls in the past, as well as making a false bomb report about two Los Angeles schools and a television station, which led to his arrest in 2016.
Barriss was apprehended on Friday, The Independent reported, after allegedly placing the fake call from Los Angeles to police in Wichita claiming that he killed his father and was holding his mother and brother hostage inside 28-year-old Finch’s home.
"I'm just pointing the gun at them making sure they stay in the closet, my mom and my little brother," the caller told a 911 dispatcher, according to CBS News.
NBC News said one of the police officers who responded to Finch's home fired after Finch moved his hand toward the area of his waistband.
Multiple sources told NBC News that the prank arose from an online gaming dispute that prompted Bariss to give the address to authorities, which turned out to be the house of Finch, who had no involvement in what was going on.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office told NBC on Tuesday that the agency handled two cases entailing four separate bomb threats that involved Barriss in 2015.
The cases were consolidated and Barriss received a 32-month prison sentence after pleading no contest in May 2016.
A spokesman for police in Glendale told NBC News that Barriss lodged about 20 threat-related calls around the country, some to news organizations and universities, during that time.
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