We have had quite a bit of success identifying bad cops in Rochester, New York in recent months thanks to posts like this one asking the public for help reviewing video footage of police misconduct in that city. Just last month we asked the public who the Rochester cops that pepper sprayed a 9 year old girl were and thanks to help from volunteers we were able to identify them (https://copblaster.com/blast/34412/what-are-the-names-of-the-rochester-cops-that-pepper-sprayed-a-child). We are trying to do the same thing now that body camera footage has been released of Rochester Police body slamming and pepper spraying a black mother in front of her three year old child.
In a cruel twist, Judge Teresa Johnson issued a warrant for the victim's arrest today after prosecutors failed to drop the charges filed against her by the arresting officer. Judge Johnson's official reason was that the victim allegedly failed to appear. We are not sure who the prosecuting attorney is in this case yet, so if you know who it is please let us know. This woman has already been punished enough. Even if she did shoplift something that day she didn't deserve to be treated the way she way. That should be punishment enough.
Please take a look at the video below. If you recognize any of these officers or are able to read a name tag on a uniform please post that information in the comments section of this page. You might want to use Open Oversight to confirm your suspicions (https://openoversight.com/department/14). They maintain a large database of Rochester Police Officers. You can also find their names in the RPD Open Data Portal (https://data-rpdny.opendata.arcgis.com/). Now we just need help figuring out which of those names belong to the people in this video. To be honest we have not have time to thoroughly review the footage ourselves yet, so don't be surprised if you spot something obvious that is not yet mentioned on this page.
We have been dropping the ball in this case so far. One reason is that even though the video was released a couple days ago, we were given the boot by our hosting company over a different website that we host on the same server. As a result we had to rent a new server and are still in the process of migrating everything. So far we have moved every site but one, but still need to move our databases. This all happened suddenly when our server was turned off yesterday and the host demanded that we point the DNS for the "offending" domain away from their IP address. We decided to move that site elsewhere after reviewing the complaints they received and not being able to find any proof that the users who posted the content in question violated that site's terms of use. The hosting company then stated that even if the information in the posts were true that the nature of the facts disclosed could violate privacy laws in their opinion. Their opinion seemed entirely based on speculation without any legal analysis. We have done the legal analysis on that domain many times over the years and found that it is legal, third parties including CNNs Anderson Cooper and a lawyer that took a look at the site have stated on the air that they were shocked that it was legal, and an effort by the U.S. Department of Justice to treat the site like a crime in federal court ended in a judge saying it was legal. Despite all that, our old host still thinks any allegation of illegality is an issue for the courts to decide in the future even if the accusers are just random members of the public. They are either not competent or not willing to look at the facts and reach their own conclusion, so their position is they are not sure if it is legal and are not willing to risk it ever being held illegal by a court in their area. They held that position for awhile before falling back to a fear of complaints to some unidentified third company and stating that they were afraid of all their IP addresses being blocked by them, but like anyone struggling to explain themselves after being caught in a lie they were unable to provide us with any facts capable of backing up their claim.
UPDATE: We have learned that two of the officers involved in this incident were also involved in the pepper spraying of a 9 year old black girl in late January. We believe to have identified one of them from our earlier coverage. We are in the process of confirming this and will post an update when we solidify things (https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/local-news/watch-live-police-accountability-board-discuss-officers-pepper-spraying-woman/).
UPDATE: At 10:02 we recognize an officer that was involved in the pepper spraying of a 9 year old girl earlier this month. We recall that man standing towards the rear of the squad car in the bottom screenshot at https://copblaster.com/blast/34412/what-are-the-names-of-the-rochester-cops-that-pepper-sprayed-a-child at 4:59. We had originally misidentified him as Adam Bradstreet, but have since learned that Bradstreet is actually the guy photographed at https://copblaster.com/blast/34416/rochester-officer-adam-bradstreet-involved-in-pepper-spraying-girl and he was not involved in this incident due to being either suspended or placed on paid leave.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, after checking our records we have realized that we do not know the name of the officer seen at 10:02 at this time. In the earlier case he was not a priority because he was just standing around.
UPDATE: We have identified Officer Dakota Vanbrederode as being the wearer of the body cam number two (https://copblaster.com/blast/34454/rpd-officer-dakota-vanbrederode-idd-at-scene-of-body-slammed-mom).
UPDATE: A local reporter in Rochester sent us a DM on Twitter saying that the trespassing charges against the victim in this case have been dropped.
UPDATE: The cop reading a children's book to the girl is Jason Hess https://copblaster.com/blast/34455/jason-hess-identified-trying-to-comfort-child-whose-mom-was-assaulted
UPDATE: The Sgt. who arrived later was Benjamin Caruso. The officer that drove her home at the end was Alexander Elmore.
UPDATE: The body slammer has been identified as Ethan Paszko. We recognized him right away from an article we wrote last month about him failing to intervene when a 9 year old girl was pepper sprayed. Learn more about Paszko at https://copblaster.com/blast/34456/rpd-officer-ethan-paszko-idd-as-body-slammer-of-mom-with-3-year-old