Wikipedia changes to Eric Garner, stop-and-frisk pages traced to NYPD: Report

A series of changes to Wikipedia pages referring to police abuses were tracked to an IP address reportedly linked to the New York Police Department.

Capital New York reported Friday that Wikipedia pages for Eric Garner, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell and and the controversial stop-and-frisk policy were all modified by an unknown number of users on police-linked IP addresses.

The Wikipedia pages, which are collaboratively edited by users around the world, altered language on the page about Garner, who died from an alleged chokehold at the hands of a police officer.

Changes included references to chokeholds (replaced once by “respiratory distress”) and their legality (from referring to chokeholds as “prohibited” to “legal, but has been prohibited.”)

Capital reported NYPD-linked addresses also made changes to more mundane pages, including 90s band Chumbawumba and the Catholic Church.

“The matter is under internal review,” an NYPD spokeswoman emailed to Capital.