Gamer

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Nicole Davis yawns lately. She gets sleepy as soon as
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the sun sets outside. The last bit of daylight appears,
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she starts thinking about dinner. Knowing her son will be
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hungry soon. She pulls out items from the pantry and
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sets them on the counter. Scrolling through recipes she saved
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on her phone, she calls for her son to take
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out the trash. Her twelve year old son shuffles in, sulking.
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Before he can say anything, she tells him, you have
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to take the trash out, and I don't want to
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hear any complaints. He frowns and sticks out his bottom lip.
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Then he grabs the trash bag and makes a show
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out of how much he dislikes the chore. Yeah, we
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all do. He heads outside and slams the door. A
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few moments later, as she heats a pan, he comes back,
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his mood lifting as he smells dinner. See that wasn't
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so bad, she says. He grunts and goes to his room.
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She calls after him, you're already this grumpy and you're
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not even a teenager yet. A muffled groan comes from
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behind his closed door. She lets him be and focuses
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on making dinner. As she reads the recipe and measures ingredients,
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she hears a loud boom, like thunder, but much closer.
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She rushes to the window, spilling rices. She sets it down,
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her eyes widened as she looks out from the second floor.
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The street below is filled with police weapons drawn. Her
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heart races, red and blue lights flash between the buildings.
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She remembers her phone and starts recording her jaw drops.
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A man is lying on his porch shot, and just
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moments earlier, her son had been only a few feet away.
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Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares, True Crime for Bedtime,
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Where nightmare begins now just before Nicole Davis, here's the
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loud boom. Andrew Finch is lying on his living room couch.
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He hears his mother watching TV and eating dinner in
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her room, his niece's muffled footsteps upstairs, and then the
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familiar sound of a car hitting a pothole in the
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alley next to his house. The restaurant is closed, though reluctantly,
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he gets up and crosses the living room to the
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front door. He opens it, flashing red and blue lights
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flood the room. He steps outside, pushing the screen door open,
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trying to see what's happening and who the police are.
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After a second later, he's bombarded. Voices shout from every direction.
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Another second passes. He looks to his left and he
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sees police at the corner of the street. He turns
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to the right and sees officers in his neighbor's front
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yard across the street. Even more officers are aiming rifles
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at him. Another second. He can understand them now, but
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he's confused, why are they here? Another moment, someone to
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his right yells hands up in the air. Someone to
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his left yells hands hands, hands, So I'm going across
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the street, yells, show your hands, walk this way. Another
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second passes. He doesn't know what to do. He puts
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his hands up, then down, then up again. Another second.
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Suddenly he's blinded by a spotlight from across the street.
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Another second passes. He tries to shield his eyes, but
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the screen doors is closing on him and his pants
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are slipping down. He pulls up his waistband and reaches
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back to stop the door from slamming into him. Then
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the rifle fires. The crack of the shot splits the air,
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echoing against the clapboard houses for an instant there's a
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stunted silence, all sound sucked from the night. When Andrew
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opened the door, his mother immediately noticed the flashing police lights.
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She got up to see what was going on. Then
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she heard the gunshot. When she walked into the hall,
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she saw her roommate poking his head out of his
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room as well. He hadn't noticed the lights until after
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he heard the gunshot. They walked together to the side door.
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They were met with a bright light directly in their
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eyes and officers shouting, come out with your hands up Upstairs,
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Andrew's seventeen year old niece hears the shot. Her heart
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raises as she hurries down the stairs, feeling confused and afraid.
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At the bottom, she sees her uncle lying face up
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just inside the front door. His chest and arm are
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covered in blood. He's breathing slowly and with difficulty. For
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a moment, she stands frozen in fear. Then she moves
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past her uncle into the living room, her eyes wide
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with panic. Suddenly, officers outside yell at her to come
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toward them. Their voice is sharp and urgent. Of the
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house are handcuffed and led to a front yard a
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few houses away. Andrew, clinging to life is also handcuffed,
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his breath ragged and shallow. His mother and niece sit helplessly,
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time dragging on as they wait for an ambulance to
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arrive for Andrew. In those endless minutes, they learn the
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police are as as confused as they are. Officers explain
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that they are responding to a SHOT's fired call. That
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is why they have come. Andrew's mother cries out in disbelief.
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It is impossible. No one in that house owns any guns.
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Andrew Finch would be pronounced to cease at seven three pm,
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thirty five minutes after he opened his front door ten
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minutes earlier. It's after hours at the Wichita City Building.
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The phone rings. Only a service officer is present. A
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young sounding man says his mother struck his father with
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a gun. The officer quickly transfers the call to nine
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one one dispatch. It's six eighteen pm when the phone rings.
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The dispatcher answers calm and practiced nine one one. The
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caller's tone is slow. He says he's at one three
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three West McCormick Street and just shot his dad in
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the head. He explains that his parents were arguing in
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it got out of hand. Unsure she heard it right,
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The dispatcher asks him to repeat it, but the connection fades.
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His words grow hard to make out. I'm not wasting time.
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She sounds the shots fired alert and quickly enters the address.
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Officers are dispatched. She keeps him on the line, asking questions,
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what's your name Ryan. That's when he shares another detail
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that chills her. My mom and brother are really scared
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right now, so I'm just pointing a gun at them
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and holding them in the closet right now. Her fingers
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blur as she updates the information in the computer system.
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Mom and brother at gunpoint in the closet. The caller
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speaks up again. I don't want to get in trouble.
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I didn't really mean to kill my dad. I'm starting
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to think about like lighting the house on fire and
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then just committing suicide. Moments later, the caller would hang up,
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but by then officers were already at the address. Officer
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Justin Rapp hears the call come over the radio. He
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and his partner turned the car around and race towards
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McCormick Street. They aren't the first ones at the scene.
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Rap sees another patrol car already covering the west end
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of the road. That's the end with the closed restaurant.
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He opens the door and steps onto the street with
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practiced motions. He retrieves his rifle from the trunk. He
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knows the drill. Depending on how things go, they may
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have to set up a perimeter until Swat arrives. Just then,
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the sergeant motions for him to follow. He leads Rap
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to the front of a two story home on the
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north side of the street, opposite the caller's address. He
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instructs him to be ready in case they need long cover.
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Wrap shoulders the rifle and peers down the sights as
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the sergeant moves on to instruct other officers. He moves
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the radical into a position aiming directly at the front door.
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Another officer points out motion on the second floor. Rap
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moves his sight. He sees a silhouette in a window.
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It appears to be bending at the waist and moving
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up and down. In his mind, it looks like someone
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performing CPR. He takes a controlled breath and anxiety heightens.
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That must be true. He thinks he shot his father
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in the head. He moves his focus back to the
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front door and takes another breath. Suddenly, a silhouette appears
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behind the screen door. Rap glances to his left at
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the group of officers staged in the neighboring front yard.
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He glances to his right at the small cluster of
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officers staged at the intersection. Then the yelling starts. The
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screen door swings open, and the silhouette becomes a man
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standing in a doorway. Rap hears the officer's yelling. He's
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watching the man's movements intently. A bead of sweat runs
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down his forehead. An officer to the right yells hands
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hands hands. Officers to the left yell hands up in
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the air. The sergeant standing next to him yells, show
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me your hands, walk this way. Rap tightens his grip
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on the rifle. His trigger finger moves to the trigger,
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then back to rest, then to trigger again. The man
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makes a movement. He reaches for his waist. It looks
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a lot like reaching for a gun. Suddenly, the man's
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shoulder drops and his hand moves up. In that instant,
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Rap squeezes the trigger. A single shot rings out. The
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man hits the ground. It was six twenty eight pm,
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ten minutes since the nine to one to one call.
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The street falls silent for a moment before erupting into
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chaos again. Seconds later, a voice comes over the radio.
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Shots fired, one down. The dispatcher asks the question no
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one on the scene can answer. Is it the suspect?
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The reply comes back, we don't know. As officers moved
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towards the house, one realization settled over the street. The
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man they had just shot might not be the suspect
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at all. About ten minutes later, the phone rang again
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at the Wichita City Building. The service officer answered it and,
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like before, transferred it to nine one one. The dispatcher
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answers the call with surprise it was the same caller
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or Anxiety swells with the thought if this is the caller,
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who did the police just shoot? The caller details the
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same scenario, but when pressed, provides new information. He said
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his house was a one story house and kept repeating
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the same address, one zero three three West McCormick. This
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was a huge clue that the caller wasn't who he
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claimed to be. Officers had already confirmed that the house
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at one to three to three West McCormick Street had
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two stories. It didn't take long for police to understand
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what had happened. The call was not real. There had
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been no domestic disputes that got out of hand, no
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father was shot, there were no hostages, especially not at
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this address. The entire thing was a hoax, and not
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just any hoax. It was a form of harassment known
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these days as swatting. Yeah, we're very innovative with our
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crimes these days. It's a false emergency call designed to
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send armed police to someone's home, usually someone who live
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streams or is in the public spotlight, you know, like me.
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But identifying the caller would take time. The phone number
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on the caller ID appeared to be local to Wichita,
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but it wasn't. Within hours, investigators discovered the number had
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been spoofed. The call had actually been placed through an
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Internet calling service designed to hide the caller's real location. Yeah,
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you can do that too. Eventually, with the help of
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the FBI, investigators traced the call to a man nearly
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fourteen hundred miles away in Los Angeles. The man behind
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it all was twenty five year old Tyler Barris, and
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in certain corners of the Internet, Barris was already well known.
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He'd spent years making hoax emergency calls across the country,
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bomb threats, active shooter calls, fake hostage situations of them online.
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Barris had built quite a reputation, a reputation for swatting
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under the screen name swautistic. Yeah yeah. The police arrested
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him the day after the event. By the way, your
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little privacy in spoofing tools or no match for what
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the FBI can do. Trust me on that. We have
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no privacy in twenty twenty six whatsoever. So keep telling
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yourself you do. You're in a black Mirror episode right
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now and you don't even know it. But the good
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thing is they caught the guy almost immediately he started talking.
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He admitted to making the phone call. He said the
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address didn't come from him. He got the address from
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an eighteen year old gamer named Casey Viner. When detectives
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contacted Viner, another layer of the story emerged. First, it
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didn't make sense everything that followed, the police response, a
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man's death, the nationwide search for the caller. It wasn't
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driven by revenge or hatred or any real motive whatsoever.
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It was about a video game with a monetary reward
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and the overinflated egos of youth. Kids are just fucking dumb.
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Stop putting them up on a pedestal and pretending like
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there are future and know everything about everything. Usually they're
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just complete retards that are full of shit, egotistical, self centered,
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and unaware of consequences. On the day of the swatting,
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Viner had been playing Call of Duty World War II online.
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During one match, an argument broke out between teammates after
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one accidentally killed the other. It started as the kind
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of argument that happens thousands of times every day and
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online games, insults, trash talk, the occasional end word threats
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typed out in seconds, but this time one of those
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threats escalated. Another player in the match, nineteen year old
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Shane Gaskill, started taunting Miner. At some point during the argument,
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Gaskill challenged him he dared someone to swat him. That
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was meant as a joke, a bluff, a way to
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prove he wasn't afraid. But there's only one problem with that.
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You see, people on the internet can be anyone. They
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can be just like you and me, or they can
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be batshit crazy. So when you go on this thing
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that connects to every other human being in the world,
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please try and remember that the address he gave Diviner,
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who then gave it to barrass wasn't his anymore. It
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belonged to Andrew Finch and the prize for winning the
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match that led to this argument, and a man's death
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wasn't thousands of dollars as you might think. It wasn't
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even hundreds. It was just one dollar and fifty cents.
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A man died for one dollar and fifty cents. Welcome
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to this brave new world. In the months after Andrew
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Finch's death, lawmakers moved to make sure a tragedy like
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this could never be dismissed as a harmless prank. Again.
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Kansas legislators passed what became known as the Andrew Finch Act,
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increasing criminal penalties for swatting calls and allowing harsher charges
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when a false emergency report leads to an injury or death.
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The case also pushed federal prosecutors to treat swatting as
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a serious interstate crime, setting a precedent that hoax callers
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could be held responsible for the consequences of the police
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response they trigger, which is an interesting shift of responsibility,
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to say the least. In the years that followed, Andrew
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Finch's family fought for accountability in civil court. They filed
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a federal lawsuit against the City of Wichita and the
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officer who fired the fatal shot, arguing that the police
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response had escalated too quickly to deadly force. After years
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of legal battles, the city ultimately agreed to a five
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million dollar settlement with the Finch family in twenty twenty two.
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While the settlement could never bring Andrew back, it marked
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an acknowledgment that the events on McCormick Street had ended
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in a devastating and preventable loss. In the immediate aftermath
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of the shooting, the actions of Officer Justin Rapp were
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placed under intense scrutiny. The Sedgwick County District Attorney conducted
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a formal review of the shooting and ultimately determined that
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Rapp's use of force was legally justified under Kansas law.
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No criminal charges were filed against him. The decision sparked
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anger amongst many of the Wichita community, who believed someone
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should be held account for Andrew Finch's death. In the
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years that followed, Rapp remained with the Wichita Police Department
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and was later promoted to detective. Tyler Barris was ultimately
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charged in federal court in Kansas with a wide range
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of crimes tied to the Wichita swatting and numerous other hoaxes.
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There were fifty one total charges, and some included conspiracy,
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interstate threats and hoaxes, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and
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making a false report resulting in death. He would accept
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a plea agreement and plead guilty. He was sentenced to
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twenty years in federal prison, and with that Barris kind
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of became famous all over again. His conviction was the
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first time a swatting call led to a federal sentence.
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His sentence was also the longest ever imposed for swatten crimes.
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Shane Gaskill was charged with wire fraud and conspira to
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obstruct justice in federal court. He too accepted a plea
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deal and was sentenced to eighteen months in federal prison,
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two years of supervised release, and restitution payments. Although Gaskill
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did not make the call, his actions were part of
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the chain that led to the deadly swatting casey Viner
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was charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Once again,
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he accepted a federal plea agreement and was sentenced to
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fifteen months in prison, two years supervised release, and restitution.
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But the effects of that night didn't stop in courtrooms
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or with new laws being passed. Inside the house on
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McCormick Street, Andrew Finch's family lived with the memory of
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that night. His teenage niece, who ran downstairs and found
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her uncle struggling to breathe never recovered from what she saw,
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her family said, the trauma stayed with her. Two years later,
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she died by suicide. Not long after her boyfriend also
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took his own life. Andrew Finch was in a suspect
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He wasn't armed, he wasn't even the person they were
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looking for, and yet in less than ten seconds he
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was dead. Just like that kind of makes you think
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how easy it is. And it wasn't because of something
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he did, but it was because of what someone miles
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away said. The person who made that call sat behind
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a screen, oblivious to any repercussions that might come from
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his actions. There were no sirens, no commands, no spotlight
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in their eyes, just a phone and a lie that
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killed an innocent man. If you enjoyed the show, please
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consider joining plus at Sword and Scale dot com slash plus.
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But if you can't consider leaving us a positive review
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on your preferred listening platform. Sweet Dreams and good Night