Andrew Finch, a 28-year old resident of Wichita, Kansas was killed on Thursday, December 28 shortly after he opened the door of his house to find an entire SWAT team with weapons drawn and trained on him. Even though Finch was unarmed and complied with orders to put his hands up, he then allegedly moved his hands to the waist and one of the officers immediately shot him dead.
The call, as it turned out, was a so called ‘swatting' prank, which involves a prankster making a fraudulent call to the emergency services in order to sic a SWAT team upon his victim.
According to media reports, this particular ‘swatting' was caused by an argument between two Call of Duty video game players over a wagered match, with the targeted player providing Finch's address instead of his own.
To add insult to injury, the wager itself was a paltry sum of $1.50.
According to ABC News, Los Angeles police managed to identify and apprehend the person who made this ‘swatting' call, a 25-year old man named Tyler Barriss from South LA.