Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)

■ A California­n faces charges in a hoax call to police that led to a killing in Kansas.

- By Heather Hollingswo­rth and Michael Balsamo

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police in Los Angeles have arrested a man they suspect made a hoax emergency call that resulted in a SWAT police officer fatally shooting a man at the door of his own home in Kansas, law enforcemen­t officials said Saturday.

Wichita Deputy Police Chief Troy Livingston on Friday characteri­zed the hoax call as “swatting” in which a “prankster” called 911 with a fake story about a shooting and kidnapping to draw a SWAT team to the victim’s address. Authoritie­s haven’t released the name of the man who was killed Thursday, but relatives have identified him as 28-year-old Andrew Finch.

Tyler Barriss, 25, is suspected of making that call and was arrested in Los Angeles on Friday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Wichita Police Department in statements emailed early Saturday afternoon.

In audio of the 911 call played Friday by Wichita police at a news conference, a man said he shot his father in the head and that he was holding his mother and a sibling at gunpoint. The caller, speaking with relative calm, also said he poured gasoline inside the home “and I might just set it on fire.”

Officers subsequent­ly surrounded the home at the address the caller provided and prepared for a hostage situation. When Finch went to the door, police told him to put his hands up and move slowly.

But Livingston said the man moved a hand toward 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 Finch was unarmed.

 ??  ?? Tyler Raj Barriss
Tyler Raj Barriss

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