A law enforcement official said police in Los Angeles had arrested a man they suspect made a hoax phone call, possibly linked to an argument over an online game, that resulted in a fatal police shooting in Kansas.
The official said 25-year-old Tyler Barriss was arrested on Friday but had no information on charges. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Barriss was convicted in 2016 on two counts of making a false bomb report to a TV station in California.
Authorities have not released the name of the man who was killed on Thursday in Wichita but relatives identified him as 28-year-old Andrew Finch.
The FBI is also investigating. Speaking on Friday, Wichita deputy police chief Troy Livingston did not mention reports that an argument over online gaming was at the heart of the prank, although he said investigators had made good progress tracking online leads.
Livingston said the hoax call was a case of “swatting”, in which a person makes up a false report to get a Swat team to descend on an address.
“Due to the actions of a prankster we have an innocent victim,” he said.
Police played audio of the call to 911. A man said his father had been shot in the head. He said he was holding his mother and a sibling at gunpoint. The caller, speaking with relative calm, said he poured gasoline inside the home “and I might just set it on fire”.
Several Swat officers arrived and surrounded the home, braced for a hostage situation. When a man came to the door police told him to put his hands up and move slowly.
Livingston said the man moved a hand toward the area of his waistband a common place where guns are concealed. An officer, fearing the man was reaching for a gun, fired a single shot.
Finch died a few minutes later at a hospital. Livingston said he was unarmed.
The officer who fired, a seven-year veteran of the department, is on paid leave pending the investigation. Police also released a brief video of body camera footage from another officer. It was difficult to see clearly what happened.
The Finch family allowed reporters inside their home. Lisa Finch told them her son was not a gamer.
“What gives the cops the right to open fire?” she told the Wichita Eagle. “That cop murdered my son over a false report in the first place.”
Lisa Finch said the family was forced outside barefoot in freezing cold and handcuffed after the shooting. She said her granddaughter was forced to step over her dying uncle and that no guns were found in the home.
Dexerto, an online news service focused on gaming, reported that the series of events began with an online argument over a $1 or $2 wager in a Call of Duty game on UMG Gaming, which operates online tournaments.
“We woke this morning to horrible news about an innocent man losing his life,” UMG spokeswoman Shannon Gerritzen said in an email. “Our hearts go out to his loved ones. We are doing everything we can to assist the authorities in this matter.”
She declined to disclose other details.
The FBI estimates that roughly 400 cases of swatting occur annually, with some using caller ID spoofing to disguise their number. An FBI supervisor in Kansas City, Missouri, which covers all of Kansas, said the agency joined in the investigation at the request of local police.
In other cases of apparent swatting, three families in Florida in January had to evacuate their homes after a detective received an anonymous email claiming bombs had been placed at the address.
A 20-year-old Maryland man was shot in the face with rubber bullets by police in 2015 after a fake hostage situation was reported at his home.
Katherine Clark, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced an anti-swatting bill in 2015 then was herself the victim of swatting. Armed officers in 2016 responded to an anonymous call claiming an active shooter was at Clark’s home.