Earlier this morning, our quote of the day highlighted an incident in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle in which a police officer supposedly pulled his gun on a group of yoots engaged in a harmless snowball fight. Now, the New Rochelle police are pushing back, saying that’s a mischaracterization of what happened. “‘There was no snowball fight,” New Rochelle Deputy Police Commissioner Anthony Murphy told the Daily News, calling the video a piece of “clever mischief.’ He said police were responding to a 911 call around 4 p.m. Friday that a teenager standing in a group of six near the Heritage Houses had pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at another person . . .
“We dispatched several cars to the area. Police officers got out of their cars and one of the individuals bent down, adjusted something in his waistband and ran,” Murphy said.
A voice on the video made the incident sound as if the responding officer came across some youthful hijinks and decided to clear leather.
“There was no snowball fight,” (Deputy Commissioner Murphy) said.
A high-ranking source agreed with Murphy.
“The video looks terrible, but it’s completely out of context,” the source said. “It’s a completely different incident than it appears from that snippet. There’s clearly a lot of misunderstanding. The record of the 911 call will by itself illustrate what was going on.”
Officials said they will not release a recording of the 911 call, but may release a transcript of the call.
“I’m sure that if I release it (the recording), there are people in the neighborhood who will identify the (caller),” Murphy said. “We depend on the public to give us information. If you violate that (trust), then what do you tell people? We know what happened, I know what happened and that’s it.”
This will probably become clearer in the fullness of time. Perhaps that 911 call transcript will help. Or not. Watch this space.
Ah yes. The liberal old media “mis-charaterizing” the actions of the privileged class versus the police.
They do that alot.
Yep. Read it too quickly, it was a personal video posted.
Well what do you know, getting the whole story first is a good thing apparently, huh?
I don’t know motives or what happened other than what is in the video. I do prefer an explanation over escalation that involves the Chief implying that PD is always right and doesn’t need additional accountability, then rolls in the citizen army when protests start popping up. The riot gear should come out when protests turn violent and destructive. Once warm weather returns, I expect something staged that will put PD in a bad light in order to get more protests going this Spring.
Too good to check?
This information was available since at least yesterday. TTAG screwed the pooch a bit here.
TTAG is missing even more information. Please see my comment below as the board ate my reply to you (it apparently isn’t allowing links to Kyle in CT’s comment?).
I think Dan owes a couple HTs here. Ya think?
Hell, the only H/Ts I ever recall seeing for something some of us (myself included) have corrected came from RF. I’ve even left a comment like, “You’re welcome!” and still didn’t even get so much as a thanks. 🙁
Some people are simply busy and some are just downright rude, I suppose. It does make it less likely that someone will actually take their time to submit news tips or corrections.
They sure did. And leaving up the old story doesn’t help.
Talk of the Sound reported that the 911 recordings have indeed been released and state that they have a Broadcastify link to the audio file. Also, they are reporting that the City has determined that the claim of a gun was unsubstantiated. Why, when this information has already been reported and some of it was at the top of the last article’s comment section is this current article on TTAG either not addressing/debunking the updated information or including the information?
I tried twice to point out the updated information in comments on the last article but the system ate both comments.
Kyle in CT posted this information on the earlier TTAG posting as the very FIRST comment! I’m not including a link because I don’t know if that is what caused my other comments not to post.
“Talk of the Sound received an official reply Sunday evening from the Office of the City Manager not NRPD: “New Rochelle Police were responding to a 911 emergency call reporting a man with gun at that location. The claim was unsustained. The incident will be reviewed by the department.”
The full story doesn’t support the TTAG anti police narrative.
^This^ is exactly why I am here half as much as in the past. TTAG is filled with nutjobs.
“The full story doesn’t support the TTAG anti police narrative.”
Perhaps not in your Orwellian worldview. For those of us who believe in something a bit less obscenely statist, the cops’ behavior was vomitous and reprehensible given even the ‘updated’ scenario.
Seriously, something ME and 8th century Islamic might be a better fit for you than the USA. We were founded by by a bunch of guys who share almost none of your ideals.
I am anti-Statist and anti-brutal cop, but I am just as much for DEATH TO THUGS WHO TRY TO KILL COPS OR CITIZENS, AS WELL AS FOR JIHADIS AND DRUG DEALERS.
YOU?
“I’m not including a link because I don’t know if that is what caused my other comments not to post. “
Interestingly, I had the board eat three comments in two separate posts (the two being Patrick’s statement and then his retraction in regard to OC in Texas) and all three that were dropped had links to the Houston Chronicle story where Patrick claimed the initial report was a mischaracterization of what he said.
I’ve noticed delays in the past occasionally when I posted links, but these never showed up after days of checking.
Software glitch in the commenting section?
I’ve seen the same issue in the past when trying to post a comment with a link. Wikipedia links never cause issues for me, but news sites frequently do.
It think it could be some glitch or setting. I hadn’t made the connection with links and the board eating my comments until today. And, as JasonM pointed out, I can’t remember ever having a problem with Wikipedia links or website links except news outlets. Strange stuff. Perhaps it’s some sort of spam filter gone maniacal?
No “Officer involved” story is finished until the media instigates a riot and a police officer is killed. Truth be damned.
New Rochelle hasn’t been the same since Dick van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore left.
The cynic in me wonders if any police department anywhere will realize that downplaying every incident, no matter how terrible, makes the public suspicious of even the most trivial incident, no matter how benign.
But no, people are people, and people whose authority exceeds their accountability will become corrupt.
Yep.
You cop-bashing jerks just don’t get it. Snowballing without a license is a major felony in New York, right up there with selling loosies.
Snowball licenses are available at every police station in New Rochelle. The cost for a snowball license is only $50.00 for the entire season and allows the license holder to make up to 25 snowballs, so there’s no reason not to have one. Throwing snowballs remains prohibited.
The New Rochelle police take enforcement of the snowball license law very seriously.
You may make up to 25 snowballs, but may not have more than 7 at one time.
Unless you’re at an approved snowball range, then you can have 8.
He hit me with a SLUSHBALL! ( in my best BillCosby voice).
Snowballing means something completely different where I grew up and I don’t think any city is going to admit to licensing it, except maybe someplace in Nevada. 😀
Hah!
The real problem here is we now have an environment of total, bi-directional distrust, where something like “cop pulls gun on kids having a snowball fight” is plausible. Some years back, the default response on hearing that would have been, “That can’t be right. There must be more to the story.” Now the default response is becoming, “That’s kind of hard to believe, but, sadly, probably true.”
I’m not laying the blame for this condition solely on the police (though they bear a good share of responsibility by not cleaning their own house), as biased media coverage and an increasing distrust of government in general has a lot to do with it. But it’s a hell of a mess, and one that will likely get worse before it gets better.
+1
IMHO, it has to get worse before it will ever get better. This is that stage where rug sweeping and temporary fixes might appear to change things on both sides for a little while but in the end it would only be a PR boost. There is a lack of trust and a lack of respect from both directions. I believe that the responsibility to repair that falls on agents of government first. They have an obligation because it is due to lack of real police accountability under the law and some very badly behaving officers/departments that we find ourselves in the present situation.
“A high ranking source”
Doing everything we can to make the movie Wag the dog a reality huh?
If that source’s words can be used to suddenly make some red herring true why can’t we know who he is? Where’s these body cameras that are supposed to put a stop to this kind of thing, why are they never turned on?
Why would I believe anything that comes out of the mouths of the most mafioso, organizationally corrupt PDs in the US? How about the old stand by I’ll believe it when I see it? I suspect though that will never happen; the cop apologists will always defend the PD (even one as hostile to our civil rights as the NYPD), and the race baiters will always defend the “unarmed teens”, facts be damned we have an agenda to push!
Spot on.
More kids getting SWAT’d, maybe?