Computers operating at 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters for the New York Police Department, have been used to edit Wikipedia pages containing cases of police brutality. Wikipedia allows anyone to edit entries with a Wikipedia account, or anonymously; oddly enough 1 Police Plaza edits were made anonymously. Little did they know, the website logs the user’s IP addresses and their edits are publicly available for viewing. These entries include many well-known victims of police altercations, including Eric Garner, Sean Bell, and Amandou Diallo. There have been 85 identified NYPD addresses that have edited Wikipedia. The changes to these articles completely altered the cases. A simple change of one word from “unarmed” to “armed” has a great impact on the results of a case. Falsifying documents involves altering, changing, or modifying a document for the purpose of deceiving another person and in many states is a crime. These allegations under internal review, but it is safe to assume there is going to be some cover-up used to dismiss them.
Sources:
Kelly Weill, “Edits to Wikipedia Pages on Bell, Garner, Diallo Traced to 1 Police Plaza,” PoliticoNewYork, March 17, 2015, http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/03/8563947/edits-wikipedia-pages-bell-garner-diallo-traced-1-police-plaza
“NYPD Mission,” NYPD Mission. Web. 16 Novemeber 16, 2015, http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/administration/mission.shtml
Student Researcher: Amber Gerard, Indian River State College
Faculty Evaluator: Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., Indian River State College