Up to a total of 85 IP addresses connected to the 1 Police Plaza’s servers modified entries for the most high-profile police abuse cases, especially including victims Eric Garner, Sean Bell, and Amadou Diallo. Edits have been made to entries covering scandals involving NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program, and the details on department leadership. There were even alterations concerned Eric Garner, who was killed by police last year during an arrest that was captured on video by an onlooker. When the mobile phone video went viral, it prompted widespread protests and a grand jury investigation. One of the edits were from “Garner raised both his arms in the air” and into “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke.” Another was “push Garner’s face into the sidewalk” changed into “push Garner’s head down into the sidewalk.” even one twice replaced to “chokehold or headlock” and to “respiratory distress.” Links to the alterations can be seen here and here. On December 3, despite the medical examiner ruling it a homicide. the Staten Island grand jury agreed not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in connection to Garner’s death, and the same day of the grand jury announcement the “Death of Eric Garner” page on Wikipedia was altered from IP addresses traced back to 1 Police Plaza. The disclosure of NYPD’s entries are now known as the Justice Department announced a national initiative for “building community trust and justice” with the nation’s policing agencies.
