Inmate tweeting from jail calls himself an 'eGod' and threatens to swat again
A software upgrade allowed an inmate in Kansas to tweet from jail.
Tyler Barriss, who is currently in jail for a fake emergency call that led to someone dying, was able to access Twitter from jail on Friday because of a software fluke. He called himself an "eGod" in his tweets and threatened to commit the crime again.
"All right, now who was talking shit?" he tweeted.
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Swatting is the act of prank calling 911 to report a fake hostage situation, bomb threat, or violent crime. There have been several high profile cases of swatting in the online gaming community — in 2014, a gamer's office was raided by a SWAT team while he was still livestreaming.
25-year-old Barriss called in a fake hostage situation in Wichita on Dec. 28, while he was in Los Angeles. Wichita police swarmed the home of 28-year-old Andrew Finch over a gaming conflict that Finch wasn't even involved in. Finch was fatally shot by a police officer when he stepped onto his porch to see what the commotion was about.
A glitch in the jail's kiosk allowed Barriss to get on Twitter. The kiosk lets inmates check their account balances, buy items from the jail commissary, and send and receive emails. According to the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office, a software upgrade on the kiosk gave access to the rest of the internet for "less than a few hours."
The Wichita Eagle noticed activity on Barriss' account, which prompted the Sheriff's Office's investigation into the kiosks. The faulty upgrade gave Barriss the chance to tweet words of wisdom like "Y'all should see how much swag I got in here."
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The glitch was apparently a nationwide problem, according to the Sheriff's Office. In a news release, the agency said that upgrading the kiosk's software again closed it off from the rest of the internet and fixed the issue.
Barriss was arrested in Los Angeles on Dec. 29 and has been in the Sedgewick County Jail since Jan. 11. He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, giving false alarm, and interfering with law enforcement. Barriss has little remorse for the swatting — the day he was charged, he tweeted that he "didnt do shit."
