Teen who swatted Disneyland sentenced to 16 months in custody

A Coquitlam, B.C., teenager who admittedterrorizing his victims out of boredom during a North America-wide swattingspreewas sentenced to a 16-month custodial sentence on Thursday.

The 17-year-oldwas given credit for the eight months he's already servedand will spend eight more months in custody, followed by another eight months supervised in the community. He is also banned from using the internet for the duration of hissentence.

"His brother misses him not being home. I do too," said the teen's mother, who cannot be identified.

The mother, who spoke toCBC News outside court, saidshe believes her son's sentence is fair. She sees him improving in youth detention: playingsports, making friendsand becoming less "inward."

She hopes her soncan return tosociety a healthier person: "I just want him to be like, you know, the one that's happy and wants to go out and do things and not become this. This is not how I raised him to be. To take revenge out on women."

She added that she does notsee "callous, sadistic or psychopathic qualities" in her son as suggested in court, just a young man led astray by older people in online gaming groups.

"I don't see that. I could be wrong. I just see [a]very inward [boy] like he was more inward and depressed. But I mean otherwise he's a wonderful boy."

• Teen who 'swatted' Disneyland had too much time on his hands
• Swatting pranks traumatizing for targets

Provincial court Judge PatriciaJanzen warned the teenthat spending hislife alone with only a computer for company was the "life of a loser" andwould only land him back in jail.

The judgeurged the young man to focus on his "promise" and stop "wasting time inflicting trauma, anxiety and harm" on victims.

"It will be your job to find that young boy inside of you who held so much promise," the judge said during sentencing.

Swatting is the practice ofcalling police to falsely report an ongoing seriousincident like a shooting or hostage-taking inhopesof drawing SWAT teams and other law enforcement to the scene.

During previous sentencing submission on June 29, the Coquitlamteen stood in court and admitted boredom drove his actions.

"I had a lot of time on my hands," he said. "I don't do anything productive, and that leaves me time to do criminal activity."

The teen pleaded guilty in the spring to 23 charges related to hoaxes that resulted in police SWAT teams responding to fake emergency calls.

The charges included extortion, harassment and public mischief.

The incidents were aimed at two dozen, mostly female, fansof the game League of Legends.

The teen also admitted to a bomb hoax that resulted in Disneyland shutting down Space Mountain temporarily in 2014.

The teen was arrested last year after police in Florida accused him of calling a high school and threatening to "shoot everyone" with an AK-47.

The Crown had recommended strict conditions around internet or computer accessbecauseapsychiatric report deemedthe teena high risk to reoffend.