A second Call of Duty player has been sentenced to prison following an incident in 2018 in which an innocent bystander was shot and killed by police in response to a swatting call.
According to previous reports, the call was placed following an argument between Casey Viner, then 18, of Ohio, and Shane Gaskill, then 20, of Wichita over a $1.50 (around £1.20) wager in an online Call of Duty game. During the disagreement, Gaskill reportedly dared Viner to swat him, deliberately providing an old address rather than his current one. Viner then passed the address to Tyler Barriss, then 25, who proceeded to place the hoax call with police, claiming an armed gunman was on the premises, with two hostages and another already shot dead.
As a result of that call, an armed police response unit visited Gaskill’s previous address and opened fire when the house’s current occupant, 28-year-old Andrew Finch, answered the door. Police later claimed Finch “unexpectedly dropped his hands” during the incident, leading responders to believe he was reaching for a weapon. Finch, who was unarmed, died in hospital, but the officer responsible for the shooting was not charged.
