NYPD Blues

NYPD Caught Editing Wikipedia Entries About Police Brutality Victims

by Aviva Shen, Think Progress

Posted on March 13, 2015 at 2:03 pm

The New York Police Department has anonymously edited and tried to delete Wikipedia pages about police brutality victims, Capital New York has discovered. Edits coming from 1 Police Plaza headquarters targeted pages for Eric Garner, Sean Bell, and Amadou Diallo.

…

Someone at the NYPD also tried to delete the article on Sean Bell, an unarmed man who was gunned down by officers firing 50 bullets in 2006, arguing that “no one except Al Sharpton cares anymore.” The user wrote, “The police shoot people every day, and times with a lot more than 50 bullets. This incident is more news than notable.”

The NYPD also edited entries about the police force’s stop-and-frisk policy deemed unconstitutional in 2013.

…

The edits and deletion attempts reflect the NYPD’s sometimes clumsy response to the increased scrutiny in the wake of controversies over stop-and-frisk, their treatment of Occupy Wall Street activists, and most recently, the crackdown on #BlackLivesMatter protesters.

…

The NYPD even cracked down on an artistic mural calling the police force “murderers,” even though the property owner had approved it. When the artist declined police requests to remove the mural, NYPD officers painted over it themselves.

Actually, it’s not so much the Beat Cops (who while technically ‘Officers’ aren’t really in charge) as it is the ‘White Shirts’ at 1 Police Plaza and the unrepresentative Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association that ceased paying attention to its blue shirted Patrolmen members a long time ago.

Bill Bratton should resign or be fired.