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A man has been arrested after a father-of-two was killed in a “swatting” prank in Kansas.

A Wichita police officer shot and killed Andrew Finch after a prank caller – suspected to be 25-year-old Tyler Barriss – reportedly told authorities Mr Finch had killed his father and was holding hostages inside the man’s home.

Authorities later learned that the call was a hoax, known as “swatting,” in which people falsely report an emergency to authorities that requires a police response, usually by Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, teams.

Swatting became a huge problem in the past decade.
Swatting is the harassment tactic of deceiving an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into sending a police and emergency service response team to another person's address. This is triggered by false reporting of a serious law enforcement emergency, such as a bomb threat, murder, hostage situation, or other alleged incident.

The term derives from the law enforcement unit "SWAT" (Special Weapons and Tactics), a specialized type of police unit in the United States and many other countries carrying military-style equipment such as door breaching weapons, submachine guns, and automatic rifles. A threat may result in the evacuations of schools and businesses. Swatting is described as terrorism due to its potential to cause disruption, wasting resources and time of emergency services. It causes money and tax dollars to be wasted by the city or county when responding to a false report of a serious law enforcement emergency.[3][4]

Making false reports to emergency services is a criminal offense in many countries, punishable by fines and imprisonment.[5] In California, swatters bear the "full cost" of the response which can range up to $10,000.[6]