Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Wanted Internet Fame... UNTIL

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Tyler Barriss is a California man who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after orchestrating a deadly December 2017 swatting hoax that resulted in police killing an innocent man.

Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street. Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away, then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at United WayGT.org.

So this wannabe professional gamer is in big trouble. He wants internet attention so badly that he ends up getting someone killed. Now this all starts with this guy, Tyler. Tyler's 23 living in Los Angeles, California. And Tyler, he's kind of a turd. And he's got no friends, no job, he still is with his grandma. But the thing he really wants is online clout. He wants to be a professional gamer and he wants a lot of attention on social media.

And so he spends all his time playing Halo online trying to get good. And one day in 2015, he gets into some kind of argument with another player online, and that player decides to swat Tyler in retaliation. So this guy calls the police, and he reports a fake emergency. And he says this emergency is happening at Tyler's house, and so, boom, police show up, Tyler's house with a full SWAT team. And suddenly there's a helicopter hovering overhead, and all kinds of cops are surrounding his place,

and Tyler's grandma is home, and she is terrified. But Tyler actually isn't. He thinks this whole scenario is kind of cool. I mean, he's impressed with the power that the other player just flexed on him. All the guy had to do was make one phone call, and he was able to cause all this chaos. And so now, Tyler wants that kind of power for himself. So he starts making phone calls to cause cancer,

He calls dozens of seemingly random schools and colleges saying, I left a bomb on campus and it's about to explode. And of course, people there panic and they evacuate the entire building. And sometimes this stuff will make the news. And so Tyler will get the thrill of seeing these mass evacuations on the TV screen. So anyway, after that, he'll go on Twitter on his anonymous account, Swatistic, and he takes credit for all of this. bragging about what he just did, which in turn gets him a ton of new followers.

So this ends up being really fun for him. He loves the attention and he feels powerful, like he can just keep breaking the law over and over again and never get caught. Then one day, he gets another idea. What if the news studio itself had to be evacuated? So he calls in a bomb threat to a local news station in Glendale. and they evacuate the building and Tyler is at home watching it live. But this time, Tyler's grandma is watching too. And she figures out that he is the one who called in the threat.

Like, you did this, didn't you? And so he gets all mad and he tells her that if she tells anyone, he'll hurt her and her dogs. So now, poor grandma is all afraid of him. And so she goes and kicks him out of her house and she files a rest. straining order against him. And of course, she also reports him. And so he goes to jail for about a year and a half. But then he gets out. And so now Tyler is legitimately homeless. And he has to move into a homeless shelter and he has to use a public library to stay online. Then at some point during all this, he gets a really fucked up idea. What if he could make money from swatting? So he starts charging

people in his gaming community to swat other people, usually other gamers or live streamers. So Tyler will do this, then he'll get paid, then he'll go on Twitter and brag about how he just swatted someone. And he does this over and over and over again. And from all this, he starts to get a reputation online as a professional swatter. But then things start to get dark. So at this point, It's 2017 and two gamers are online playing Call of Duty together. This guy, Viner, and this other guy, Gaskill. Now, these two have never met in real life, but they're playing as teammates, and they just bet other players from the opposing team $1.50 that they'll win this match.

So they're playing, and at some point during the match, Gaskell messes up and he accidentally shoots and kills Viner's character. And this friendly fire causes them to lose the game. And this pisses Viner off. I mean, he just lost $1.50 because of Gaskell's incompetence, and he's not going to let that slide. So these two start fighting over messages and DMs on Twitter. And this fight escalates.

And soon, Viner is like, that's it. I'm going to swat you. And since Tyler is known for being a professional swatter, Viner DMs him and asks him, to SWAT Gaskell for him. And of course, Tyler... Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street.

Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away. Then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at United WayGt.org. Grease to do it.

So Tyler starts following Gaskell on Twitter to get information on him. And Gaskell sees that Tyler is following him and he knows Tyler's reputation and he knows that Tyler is probably gonna eventually swat him. But Gaskell isn't worried. He thinks this is hilarious. In fact, he publicly tweets at Tyler,

please try some shit. I'll be worried. waiting. He even gives Tyler his home address and he dares him to do it. But here's the thing. The address that Gaskell gives him isn't actually his home address. It's his old address. He doesn't live there anymore. But see, Tyler doesn't know that. He thinks it's current. So he gets right to work. And he calls 911 and he makes up a fake emergency. They were arguing and I shot him in the head and he's not breathing anymore. Okay, do you have any weapons on you? Yeah, I do. What kind of weapons do you have? A handgun, pointing the gun at them, making sure they stay in the closet, my mom and my little brother.

Then he gives them the old address that Gaskell gave him. So now a SWAT team is on their way, thinking that they're about to walk into a life-threatening hostage situation. But what they don't know is that while Gaskell isn't living there anymore, a totally innocent family has sent moved in and they're not involved in any of this. They're just chilling at home, mine in their own business. Regardless, suddenly, boom, their house is surrounded with police cars and a whole ass SWAT team armed pointing guns at the plates. And these occupants are terrified. They have no idea what's going on. Now, one of the occupants is this man, Andrew. And so Andrew steps outside on his front porch to try and

figure out what's going on. And officers, they yell at him, put you your hands up because they think Andrew has a weapon. Of course, he doesn't. Despite that, blam, one of the cops shoots him. And sadly, Andrew dies from this. And pretty quickly, coverage of this is on the news and Gaskell sees it and he knows he's fucked. So he messages Tyler and Viner and he's like, delete everything. This is a murder case now. Because he wants to erase all the messages between them to, you know, cover up what they did. But see, Tyler, he doesn't want to cover it up. Instead, he goes right to Twitter and he starts bragging about it and he posts, that kid's house I swatted is on the news. Because remember, Tyler loves attention and he just

can't resist the clout he thinks he's going to get from all this. The next day, he agrees to be interviewed on a YouTuber's drama news show. And during the interview, he's straight up admits to the crime. So you swat at that address, correct? Sure. Okay, so you swat at the address. You put in the fake hostage situation, correct? Yep.

And then this guy gets killed. That's what happened, I guess. Do you feel sad about it? Like, if I cause somebody to die like that, I wouldn't be able to sleep. Is there any empathy? It's my personal belief that I didn't cause someone to die. So this guy shows no remorse, and he blames all the other people involved, and he says he's not even worried about the police catching him.

But anyway, then, a few hours later, guess what happens? Bam, he gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. Also, bam, Viner is arrested. Here's a picture of him. Also, bam, Gaskill is arrested, too. Here's a picture of him. And so ultimately, Viner is sentenced to 15 months in prison, while Gaskill is sentenced to 18 months in prison,

while Tyler is sentenced to 20 years. in prison. The longest sentence ever given. Prevention. Donate today at United WayGT.org for swatting.