The kinds of largely harmless but annoying and occasionally funny pranks kids played on people in my youth, back in the 1400s, have devolved to utter evil with the practice of swatting. That involves calling the police with a panicky, emotional report of a murder in progress or other dangerous call that will send them to a home, wary about being themselves killed.
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During my police career, which ended a quarter century ago, that just didn’t happen. We occasionally got a hot call that turned out to be lukewarm at best, but no intentional attempts to get someone shot by the police. That wasn’t the case in December of 2017 when a Wichita, KS, police officer shot and killed an innocent man in a swatting incident. A 19-year-old gamer from Ohio(?!) was involved and sentenced to 15 months in prison and $2500 in restitution. The circumstances were as bizarre as they were tragic:
The case originated with a $1.50 bet between Viner and “Call of Duty: WWII” opponent Shane Gaskill of Wichita, Kan. Gaskill refused to pay up, and police said Viner asked Tyler Barriss, 26, to “swat” Gaskill. Barriss called the police in Kansas from his home in Los Angeles to give a false report of a fake shooting and kidnapping at a Wichita address assumed to be Gaskill’s.
Gaskill and his family previously lived at that address but were evicted in 2016.
Barris pled guilty to 51 felonies and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
A swatting episode involving Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett ended without those kinds of horrors:
Police rushed to the Fairfax County, Va., home of Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett Wednesday night after a caller claimed gunshots had been heard. Officers arrived, coordinated with Supreme Court Police personnel assigned to the residence, determined that the report was false, and cleared the scene without additional police resources. Fairfax County Police confirmed the call came through the department’s non-emergency line at 9:02 p.m. From Blaze Media:
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A recording posted by a self-identified Washington, D.C., photographer purportedly documents a police dispatcher ordering a police response to the home of a “high-priority resident of the county.”
The dispatcher informs the officer that personnel have been unable to call the complainant back, indicating that it may be a swatting incident.
“Units responding to suspicious noise. Be advised, we have not been able to get an answer on call back to the complainant’s phone number. Unknown if it’s going to be a swatting situation,” she says.
“Just made contact with security that’s on scene,” a male officer says. “They should be outside in an Explorer. He said he hasn’t heard anything. We’re just going to meet up with him first, just to go over anything.”
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The photographer reported that the victim of the swatting incident was Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
The swatting against Coney Barrett was later confirmed. This isn’t the first such threat against Coney Barrett’s family:
Barrett’s own family has faced threats, too. In March 2025, Charleston, S.C., police investigated a bomb threat involving Amanda Coney Williams, Barrett’s sister, after an email claimed a pipe bomb had been placed in her mailbox. Police determined the threat was false, but the point of the act was obvious enough: frighten the target and their family. Make public service feel like a sentence.
Nor is it the first threat against “conservative”—judges who use the Constitution as the basis for their decisions— Supreme Court Justices. During the Biden Administration, their homes were constantly picketed, and no one was prosecuted despite a specific federal statute addressing exactly that kind of crime. In 2022, a man was intercepted on his way to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home. The DOJ asked for 30 years; he got 97 months—barely over eight years—and lifetime supervised release.
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Oddly, there have been no reports of picketing, harassment of any kind, or swatting at the homes of the three blatantly liberal justices. One suspects that’s because while Normal Americans—largely but not entirely Republicans—often disagree with Supreme Court decisions, they’re not members of the party of rage and violence, so liberal justices sleep soundly in their beds. Not so for constitutional justices.
This time, Coney Barret, her husband, and their seven children were lucky. She and the other constitutional justices, and their families, may not be so fortunate next time.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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