--- title: "Grandfather Dies of Heart Attack After Minors SWAT His Home" description: "Marking Herring, a 60-year-old grandfather from Tennessee, suffered a fatal heart attack after being swatted by a bunch of kids." date: "2021-07-22" modified: "2021-07-22" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/grandfather-dies-heart-attack-swatting" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "swatting" - "the digest" --- # Grandfather Dies of Heart Attack After Minors SWAT His Home ![Marking Herring, a 60-year-old grandfather from Tennessee, suffered a fatal heart attack after being swatted by a bunch of kids.]() *\Image: Marc Cooper via Wikimedia Commons\* ## Deadly Swatting Marking Herring, a 60-year-old grandfather from Tennessee, suffered a fatal heart attack after police stormed his home, [local *ABC*-affiliated news station *WKRN*]() reports. The man was "swatted," a criminal harassment scheme in which a person tricks the police into sending a SWAT team to a person's address. The reason why Herring drew the harassment is equally strange. The harassers allegedly swatted Herring order to intimidate him into handing over his Twitter handle @tennessee, an exceedingly rare username on a platform of hundreds of millions. ## Scam Handle Fortunately, the perpetrators have already been identified. Shane Sonderman, who was a minor at the time of the incident, was the one who "collected all our information, my address, my sister's, my moms, my mother sister, and put it on a channel on Discord, which is a gaming chat forum," Herring's daughter Corinna Fitch told *WKRN*. Sonderman is now behind bars and is awaiting trial. A different minor, from the UK, made the call to the local police department, according to Fitch. Because they are a minor, the UK won't be extraditing the perpetrator to the US, nor releasing their identity. According to *WKRN*, the UK minor had five other targets in the US as well, but Herring was the only target who died. This isn't the only swatting incident that has ended in death. In 2018, 26-year-old Tyler Barriss was found to have made several bomb threats, including a swatting incident that [ended in the death of 28-year-old Andrew Finch](). Barriss pleaded guilty to 51 federal charges and [was sentenced to 20 years]() in prison in 2019. **READ MORE:** [A grandfather died of a heart attack after minors swatted him over his rare Twitter handle]() \[*Techspot*\] **More on swatting:** [*YouTube Sues Man for Allegedly Swatting a Minecraft Streamer*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()