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The New York Police Department has confirmed that at least some edits to Wikipedia entries about people who died following confrontations with NPYD officers were made from computers on the departments servers,Capital New York reported Sunday.

The departments admission came two days after Capital first reportedthat hundreds of Wikipedia edits were made from computers on the NYPD network and that those edits included tweaks to Wikipedia articles about Eric Garner, Sean Bell andAmadou Diallo, all of whom were killed in police-involved incidents.Capital also identifiededits from NYPD servers to a stop-and-frisk entry and the portion of Wikipedias NYPD entry that deals with allegations of misconduct.

New York police officials said they were only able to identify the editor for theDeath of Eric Garner page because the department only keeps computer activity logs for about a year. In total, theedits identified by Capital New York span about a decade and include 85 IP addresses registered to 1 Police Plaza.

Deputy Commissioner Stephen Daviss statement to Capital specifically addressed two rounds of edits to Garner article,on the same December evening that a grand jury declined to indict the officer involved in Garners choke-hold death. We are conducting an internal investigation to identify what member of the service may have accessed the Departments server, Davis said. These incidents did not originate from computers located at Police Headquarters.

One such edit: Garner raised both his arms in the air was changed to Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke.

Juliet Barbara, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation the non-profit that supports Wikipedia said in an emailed statement that edits by the NYPD about something the pertains to their work would generally be considered a conflict of interest by the Wikipedia community.

The site, in the interest of maintaining the neutrality of its articles, strongly discourages people from editing articles in which they might have a personal or professional stake. Wikipedias long-standing conflict of interest policy is outlined in more detail here. It reads, in part:when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

Wikipedias editorial policies are enforced by the volunteer editors of its community and not the Wikimedia Foundation,but Barbara noted that the community has developed a number of governance mechanisms, including warnings and blockings, that empower editors to respond to apparent violations of the sites policies.

One of Wikipedias great strengths is its transparency: Every change to an article is public information, she added. Anyone,anywhere can assess how an article has been created and maintained,identify issues when they arise,and take action to maintain its neutrality and accuracy.

Davis told Capital that the anonymous editors would potentially be of concern to the NYPD for a different reason: They were using their work computers for non-work activity.

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Eric Garners Wikipedia page was edited from an NYPD computer, NYPD admits