Man Arrested in Connection With Swatting Incident
Yesterday, we told you about a horrible incident where police officers responded to an anonymous call reporting a fatal hostage situation in Wichita, Kansas. The call was a pissed-off player swatting another player all because of an online Call of Duty match and a $2.00 dollar bet. Today, we learned that authorities arrested a man in South Los Angeles in connection to the swatting incident. An incident that tragically resulted in a Kansas man’s death.
Tyler Barriss, 25, was arrested Friday on suspicion of making a hoax phone call to police in Wichita, Kansas. Authorities in Wichita said someone made a prank call to 911 with a made-up story about a shooting and kidnapping. That call resulted in the death of an innocent man relatives identified as Andrew Finch, 28. The hoax phone call was a case of swatting, authorities said, in which a person creates a false story to get a SWAT response to an address.
Authorities released the 911 recording in which a man said his father had been shot in the head. The caller said the man was holding him, his mother and a sibling at gunpoint and that that man threatened to light the house on fire.
When police headed to the home, they surrounded it and prepared to deal with a hostage situation. Finch answered the door and followed instructions to put up his hands and move slowly. But at some point, authorities said he moved toward his waistband and officers fired a single shot in fear Finch may have reached for a gun.
Authorities said Finch died at the hospital and that he was unarmed. The police and FBI were investigating whether the hoax call stemmed from an argument over an online game.
In October 2015, Glendale police arrested a 22-year-old man with the same name for making bomb threats to KABC-TV. He was charged with two felony counts of a false report of a bomb to an agency of business and one felony count of criminal threats.
Tyler Raj Barriss, of Glendale, is shown in a mugshot when he was arrested in October 2015 for making a false bomb threat to KABC-TV.