Why is the NYPD promoting this animal cruelty video?
The NYPD's animal cruelty channel
The New York Police Department’s YouTube channel is howling for some better oversight.
The NYPD is a pioneer in the use of video cameras to improve public safety. Inspired by London’s Ring of Steel, the city has linked up over 3,000 public and private cameras south of Canal Street. And it recently announced that it will be rolling out the program in Midtown Manhattan as well.
I’m currently reporting on the upswing in surveillance systems across the country thanks to post-9/11 Department of Homeland Security grants. I was surfing the NYPD’s press releases on its camera systems and came across this one from January. It touts the use of cameras to, in the same evening, track down the killer of a 9-year-old boy and the abuser of a small lapdog.
In reading the press release, I noticed two embedded links. They both took me to the NYPD’s YouTube channel. One of the videos was amazing, in its demonstration of how the NYPD uses public cameras to track down and capture suspect. The other was seriously demented, and left me wondering what in the world the NYPD was thinking when it posted it…
One of the videos shows how the NYPD tracked and captured the man suspected of stabbing 9-year-old Anthony Maldonado to death:
This second video, though, about the arrest of a New York man on animal cruelty charges is just horribly disturbing. This graphic two-minute-long video shows a man brutalizing his girlfriend’s dog in an elevator:
I think it’s great that the NYPD used the cameras to protect this poor dog. But I do not understand why they feel the need to archive the footage online for others to watch. At over 6,000 views, it’s one of the most popular videos on the NYPD YouTube channel.
Together, these two videos symbolize the upside and downside of surveillance cameras. They can be used to more effectively prosecute crimes, but the possibilities for misuse are numerous. Uploading footage from the cameras to essentially create government-funded animal cruelty porn definitely falls into the “misuse category.”
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37 seconds was all I could do, so what did he get?
He was sentenced to a year in prison, but for another crime: http://dnainfo.com/20100114/manhattan/man-caught-on-tape-abusing-dog-sentenced-year-prison-on-another-charge
In response to another comment. See in context »Thanks, I wouldn’t have found that. I see he was going to get 5 days community service until the judge realized he was the elevator ambusher, well now with a year he’ll get some of that, probably a lot with the reputation of the NYC Rickers jail.
In response to another comment. See in context »This really is disturbing. I’d want to grab the IP address of anyone who watched it twice.
In response to another comment. See in context »God, that was hard to watch. I feel bad for watching that. I don’t see the benefit in promoting this. It’s like the guy above said–you either watch this video once or you watch it more than once. http://www.myspace.com/virginhook
In response to another comment. See in context »Steve, I’m with you there.
In response to another comment. See in context »Wow. That is disgusting. If he was doing that to his dog, I wonder what he was doing to his girlfriend. Research has shown time and time again that people who abuse their family/girlfriends also abuse animals. And the way he does it for joy- motioning for the dog to come closer, only to kick it. There is a special place in hell for that guy.
I think videos like this should be shown so people feel more motivated to do something about it.