The typical Wichita City Council meeting is a dull affair, dominated by bureaucrats droning on about street repairs, zoning codes, and general obligation bonds. But even before the April 17, 2018, meeting was called to order, its atmosphere was electric. As the council’s wood-paneled chambers filled up that Tuesday morning, a dozen or so spectators made a point of settling into the front rows. A group of women wore matching black T-shirts that read "Arrest WPD officer Justin Rapp." And when the police department’s spokesperson came forward to offer the opening prayer, several in the group refused to stand.

Mayor Jeff Longwell, who oversees the weekly meetings, appeared to dread the drama he knew was about to come. After reading an Arbor Day proclamation and cracking a wan joke about his poor gardening skills, he sank into his high-backed leather chair and wearily asked the clerk to call the next item on the agenda. The clerk announced the name of a Wichita resident who’d asked to address the council, as well as her chosen topic: “Lisa Finch. Andrew Finch shooting.”

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A woman in the audience got up and walked gingerly down the right-hand aisle. She had fine black hair and matronly eyeglasses, and was clad in sweatpants and a hoodie that were different shades of gray. Once she’d adjusted the lectern’s flexible microphone to suit her modest height, she began to speak in the flat yet steely accent of a proud Kansan.

“The death of my son has changed every iota of my being,” Lisa Finch said, reading from the speech she’d spent weeks writing by hand on ruled paper. “I am astonished by the transformation that has been brought to me. I have a different idea of myself. I have been basically forced to alter everything I do. I do not recognize the person I was before. That person is now a stranger from long ago.”

Her heartfelt rumination soon segued into a stinging critique of Wichita’s police, whom she largely blames for what happened to her son. His death last December, in bizarre circumstances that made headlines around the world, turned Finch into an advocate for holding cops to account when they make fatal errors. Her scrappy campaign for justice has rattled her city, a place where the police are far more accustomed to being admired than scrutinized.

As she spoke at length about her rage and anguish, Finch conspicuously failed to mention the nihilistic Angeleno who has been widely vilified for his role in her son’s death. She goes out of her way to avoid letting this young man’s name cross her lips, even though he has become a global symbol of all that’s rotten in gaming culture. She has never tried to learn about his extensive history of using the internet to sow real-world mayhem. All she knows is that his idea of a prank randomly smashed apart her family on a frigid winter night, and that she’s been adrift in a haze of grief ever since.

Blinding white lights were trained on Finch as voices yelled at him from multiple angles to raise his hands. Eric Ogden

The man who called the Glendale, California, police department at 1:52 pm on September 30, 2015, said his name was Alex. In a quiet, almost childlike voice, he stated that he’d placed several backpacks containing bombs inside the news studio of KABC-TV, adjacent to Griffith Park. The bombs would be remotely detonated in 10 minutes.

The studio was evacuated, and as K-9 units swept the premises the news team broadcast its afternoon show from the lawn outside the building. No explosives were found, which is why the response was more muted when an identical threat was phoned into the police nine days later: The bomb squad gave the studio a careful once-over, but the employees stayed at their desks.

Detectives were initially stymied in their efforts to find “Alex.” His calls had come from a number with a Tennessee area code that traced back to a spoofed IP address. Then investigators received a crucial tip: A Cal State Northridge police officer reported that a friend of his, Wendy Gregory, had confided that her 22-year-old grandson was responsible for the ABC bomb threats. The man’s name was Tyler Barriss.