Cell phones with camcorders built-in are commonplace, yes, but so far there hasn't been anything close to a one-button solution for transmitting video clips from them on the fly directly to social media channels. This has been something missing from the ground journalist's arsenal, at least in the seameless sense now offered up by Tout.
Using Tout to ground report a shooting incident in LA.
Tout, which is available for both the iPhone and Android lines, allows you to begin recording in 2 strikes (the icon, then the video screen). Recording self-terminates at 15 seconds, although it can be stopped sooner, ensuring that you are capturing enough activity to give the world what they need of your perspective, without inadvertantly making a file too large for transmission or running down your phone battery. When it is finished recording it takes just one more strike of the screen to actually send it, and that's it.
Of course you do need to pre-configure the app in order to designate which social media targets beyond Tout's own service you wish to distribute along which will likely be a Facebook or Twitter feed, and what network environment will be acceptable for transmission (for instance, 3G or Wi-Fi, or either). However, that's about as complicated as it gets.
The above clip is from one Tout user on the scene of a shooting in LA (they got'em there too it turns out), and it illustrates the kind of spot-on reporting you can contribute at any time.
Before (allegedly?) shooting his wife to death and wounding his stepdaughter, Guerino Annarumma seemed to be blogging pretty freely and openly that he might do something just like that. He may have been determined enough to express his feelings through broken, twisted, blogging right up until last August. Bear in mind that there's no real way to confirm that a particular blog is or is not written by some clunk who is no longer free to clarify one way or another, but let's just say that if this blog is written by anyone but the accused, it's at least an uncanny synopsis of the same grudges against the same named victims. Take it as you will. For understandable legal reasons I can only observe that such a blog exists, not tell you who authored it or confirm a connection to the events under discussion.
The live blog is currentlyavailable here. However, if you click the image below you will see a captured screenshot which should survive the original one being taken down.
Guerino tells the MSM he was angry and felt used in some sort of Russian girl "green card" operation that left him estranged and marred with an arrest record. That actually could have happened abstractly speaking as I am aware that a common marriage scam is for a woman on the fast track to citizenship to marry an American lonely heart. If, at the appropriate time, the poor sap of a dude doesn't play ball by allowing the relationship to dissolve naturally in a quick divorce shortly thereafter, he will be targeted in an escalation campaign that involves agitating him into abuse or simply making abuse charges up outright. Extra points if the charges involve a kid being touched. Don't ask how I know all of this but suffice to say that I, as an informally confirmed paranoid, spend a lot of time on the Internet.
We should be careful not to draw such a damning conclusion about the motivations of these women, of course. We have to assume the best intentions and absolute sincerity of these victims' relationships to the defendant. Many marriages to foreign spouses are "real" and work out wonderfully for entire lifetimes for both parties. Even if there was some hanky-cranky for a green card, it doesn't excuse this. Whether the guy got screwed or not he could have found a bar stool in which to drink and bitch away the entire matter. Now he's on his way to prison where new and interestingly primal concerns will eclipse his obsession for vengeance.
Readers of this blog posting who have unique insight to the issue and incidents mentioned above are encouraged to open up and comment on their perspective by leaving a comment. Get the media out of the way and speak your mind here and now.
You Tuber Pinsudas uploaded the following video of President Obama's motorcade as it rolled down E. 12th Street. Excellent example of citizen journalism on the spot.
In general you can always follow Obama's motorocade around the country with this Twitter query. As of this posting time, Obama is in NYC to light the Rockefeller Christmas tree.
Nikolai Ivanov, Dimitar Stamatov, and Iordan Ivanov are three men indicted earlier this month on charges that they were part of an ATM "skimming" operation. Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance indicates that up to 1,100 people were impacted by the operation that involved rigging ATM machines with malignant card readers design to record user information, and tiny cameras aimed to catch critical PIN codes as they were physically typed in.
No joke, this is video cam footage from ATM machine's "skim cam".
During a five-day skimming spree in January 2011 that is charged in the indictment three subjects are accused of stealing data from more than 1,100 ATM cards. During that period, these two defendants entered the United States from Quebec, Canada, and drove to Manhattan, where they planted eleven different skimming devices at four different ATMs within a mile radius of Union Square. The stolen debit cards were used in fraudulent transactions worth more than $264,000 in the weeks that followed in Arizona, Illinois, and several locations in Canada. Four months later the crew returned from Canada to New York to commit additional ATM skimming, resulting in more than $20,000 in fraud.
On May 24, 2011, members of the NYPD Identity Theft Squad arrested Nikolai Ivanov and Stamatov as the defendants retrieved a skimming device from a bank branch at 785 Broadway. Iordan Ivanov had returned to Canada that morning, and was not arrested. The Ivanov brothers are naturalized Canadian citizens, and Stamatov is a legal permanent resident of Canada; the investigation has revealed that most of the stolen funds were sent by Western Union to the defendants’ native Bulgaria. Nikolai Ivanov AND Stamatov were charged in May 2011 in a three-count indictment that is superseded by today’s 81-count indictment, and have been in custody since their arrest on $500,000 bail.
The New York County District Attorney’s Office is working with the United States Department of Justice to seek extradition of Iordan Ivanov, who is believed to be at large in Canada at present.
Readers of this blog posting who have unique insight to the issue and incidents mentioned above are encouraged to open up and comment on their perspective by leaving a comment. Get the media out of the way and speak your mind here and now.
My most important goal with this blog is to demonstrate, perhaps not without a degree of clumsiness or redundancy, that local news can travel and circulate meaningfully and with interest, driven by a non-profit protocol.
I'm not sure how to do this or how to distinguish progress from anything already being done on the web. But I am sure going to try. For the moment, I am happy (though rapidly disenchanted with) regurgitating press releases from various resources. I want to shed this systematic delivery as quickly as possible and replace the droning of legal and other bureaucratic entities with a voice that is engaging. Look to a transition beginning now and into the future.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the guilty plea of JOHN MARTINEZ, 40, for using an ice pick or knife to rob three women as they entered their homes in and around Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village on the East Side of Manhattan, and for attempting to do the same to a fourth woman. MARTINEZ pled guilty to Burglary in the Second Degree and Attempted Robbery in the First Degree.
“This defendant threatened safety and security of women and children in their own apartment buildings,” District Attorney Vance said. “With this guilty plea, a dangerous criminal will be kept out of our neighborhoods.”
According to documents filed in court, on November 22, 2010, MARTINEZ cornered his first victim in the elevator of her apartment building in Peter Cooper Village. While riding in the elevator, MARTINEZ pulled out a knife and demanded the woman give him money. The victim handed over approximately $700 in cash, and MARTINEZ fled.
On December 2, 2010, in the elevator of a residential building in Stuyvesant Town, MARTINEZ pulled out an ice pick and demanded that his second victim, who was with her three-year-old son at the time, hand over her money, jewelry and credit cards. After the victim gave him approximately $80 in cash, he threatened to stab the child if his mother did not take MARTINEZ back to her family’s apartment to retrieve more money. When they arrived at the victim’s floor, the woman and child were able to enter their apartment without MARTINEZ gaining entry.
Minutes later on December 2, 2010, MARTINEZ entered an apartment building on East 14th Street and once again boarded an elevator with a woman and her two small children. MARTINEZ wielded the ice pick and requested that she give him her jewelry and money. The victim handed him her wallet and a ring, and he fled.
Less than a half-hour before the first successful robbery on December 2, 2010, the defendant followed a woman into a different apartment building on East 14th Street. However, the woman refused to step into the elevator with the defendant, although he encouraged her to do so. MARTINEZ was charged with Burglary in the Second Degree in connection with this incident.
Over the past few months, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has sought and obtained lengthy sentences against violent felony offenders. On October 20, 2011, ANTHONY LINDSEY, 32, a violent predicate felon, was sentenced to 65 years in prison and five years post-release supervision following his conviction at trial for three separate gunpoint robberies in the West Village in 2008. LINDSEY was convicted of 11 violent felonies, including Burglary in the First Degree, Robbery in the First and Second Degrees, Attempted Robbery in the First and Second Degrees, and Assault in the Second Degree.
Readers of this blog posting who have unique insight to the issue and incidents mentioned above are encouraged to open up and comment on their perspective by leaving a comment. Get the media out of the way and speak your mind here and now.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the guilty plea of Ruben Wills, 40, for stealing and damaging property from a Lower Manhattan office in 1996. Wills pled guilty to Criminal Mischief in the Fourth Degree, a class A misdemeanor, before Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Felicia Mennin. The defendant, who in 1997 agreed to an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal before failing to reappear in court, was today sentenced to a conditional discharge, three days community service, and ordered to pay $2,500 in restitution.
According to the complaint and the facts admitted in court, on August 14, 1996, Wills entered Inner Circle Communications on West Broadway and intentionally removed and damaged property inside the office. Wills failed to appear in court on subsequent court dates and a bench warrant was issued. Wills returned to court in March 2011, more than 14 years after his arrest.
Following the defendant’s guilty plea, District Attorney Vance announced plans to call on lawmakers in Albany to amend the current statute of limitations for the crime of Bail Jumping, Criminal Procedure Law Section 30.10 (4), in order to help prosecutors bring to justice those defendants who deliberately fail to appear in court. Currently, the statute of limitations for prosecuting Bail Jumping in the First and Second degrees is five years, and the statute of limitations for prosecuting Bail Jumping in the Third Degree is two years. Under the proposed amendment, that time limitation would stop running for any period following the commission of the offense during which the defendant has intentionally failed to return to court and a bench warrant has been ordered. The amendment would not only help prosecutors to charge bail jumping by stopping the clock on the statute of limitations, it would also ensure that defendants are not rewarded for intentionally absconding for a period longer than the statute of limitations.
Readers of this blog posting who have unique insight to the issue and incidents mentioned above are encouraged to open up and comment on their perspective by leaving a comment. Get the media out of the way and speak your mind here and now.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that a 36-year-old Brooklyn man who was allegedly driving the wrong way on the Long Island Expressway service road last month has been charged with manslaughter, among other crimes, for a fatal hit and run crash with a livery cab that took the life of its passenger, a Maspeth bar owner, and injured its driver, among others. The defendant was apprehended yesterday in Connecticut by the U.S. Marshals New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force following an anonymous tip to the New York City Police Department’s Crime Stoppers hotline. District Attorney Brown said, “A local business owner tragically lost his life in a hit-and-run crash that also injured two other individuals. It is alleged that the defendant, instead of staying and assisting in anyway he could, fled the scene and remained at large for approximately a month until being apprehended yesterday by authorities. The alleged reckless actions displayed by the defendant warrants that this case be vigorously prosecuted.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Peter Rodriguez, 36, of 76 DeSales Place in Brooklyn. Rodriguez was arraigned today before Queens Criminal Court Judge Gene R. Lopez on a criminal complaint charging him with the crimes of second-degree manslaughter, second- and third-degree assault, criminally negligent homicide and a felony violation of VTL 600-2A (Leaving the Scene Without Reporting). Rodriguez, who faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted, was ordered held without bail and to return to court on December 2, 2011.
The District Attorney said that, according to the criminal charges, Rodriguez was operating a 2002 gray Chrysler Sebring westbound at approximately 6:50 a.m. on October 15, 2011, at a speed in excess of the posted 30 miles per hour limit in the eastbound lanes of the Midtown Expressway (Long Island Expressway Service Road) when he collided head on with an eastbound 2003 black Lincoln Town Car. As a result of the crash, George Gibbons, 37, who was sitting in the rear seat of the Town Car, was thrown forward into the front seat and into the dashboard. Mr. Gibbons, who was the owner of The Gibbons’ Home in Maspeth, was removed to a local Queens hospital, where he was pronounced dead from multiple blunt force injuries to the head, neck and chest. The Town Car’s 59-year-old driver also sustained severe head, neck and back injuries which required hospitalization.
It is further alleged that Rodriguez and his passenger immediately fled the scene. However, the passenger later returned to the scene and was hospitalized for injuries to his head.
The complete release is available as a PDF download.
Readers of this blog posting who have unique insight to the issue and incidents mentioned above are encouraged to open up and comment on their perspective by leaving a comment. Get the media out of the way and speak your mind here and now.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that a Jackson Heights man has been charged with graffiti as a hate crime for spray painting swastikas on a library, synagogue and church in the Jackson Heights section of Queens earlier this month. District Attorney Brown said, “It is fitting that the defendant was arrested on Veterans Day, a day in which we remember and honor those who served and those who died in the service of our country, among whom are the World War Two veterans who bravely fought to rid the world of Nazi ideology – symbolized by the swastika, an ideogram of hate and evil. As a civilized society, we will not stand idly by and allow individuals to mar our neighborhoods with such hate graffiti. When it,
regrettably, does occur, those responsible will be brought to justice.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Franco Rodriguez, 40, of 35-38 86th Street, Jackson Heights, Queens. Rodriguez was arraigned on Saturday, November 12, 2011, in Queens Criminal Court on a criminal complaint charging him with three counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime and three counts of making graffiti. Rodriguez, who faces up to four years in prison if convicted, was ordered held on $5,000 bail and to return to court on December 1, 2011.
The District Attorney said that, according to the charges, Rodriguez used black spray paint to draw three swastikas on a window and two glass doors of the Jackson Heights branch of the Queens Public Library at approximately 5:30 a.m. on November 3, 2011. In the second instance, it is alleged that Rodriguez drew a swastika with black spray paint on the front door of Congregation Tifereth Israel of Jackson Heights, a synagogue located at 31-36 88th Street, sometime before 8:00 a.m. on November 3, 2011. The lens of the synagogue’s surveillance camera was also allegedly spray painted. Finally, Rodriguez is alleged to have painted a swastika in black spray paint on the front of the side door of St. Joan of Arc Church, located at 82-00 35th Avenue, sometime before 12:00 p.m. on November 4, 2011. At the time of his arrest, Rodriguez allegedly told authorities that he spray painted the swastikas on the three buildings and that he did so because Jewish people were harassing him.
The complete release is available as a PDF download.
Readers of this blog posting who have unique insight to the issue and incidents mentioned above are encouraged to open up and comment on their perspective by leaving a comment. Get the media out of the way and speak your mind here and now.
On October 6, 2011, a jury of her peers convicted Ms. Sheehan of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, a Class C Violent Felony, for possession of a 9mm semi-automatic Glock handgun with intent to use unlawfully against another. The facts underlying this conviction are uncontroverted – Barbara Sheehan fired a 9mm handgun at her husband, retired New York City Police Sergeant Raymond Sheehan, inside their bathroom six separate times as he lay on the floor unarmed and wounded from five earlier gunshot wounds. Her criminal conduct can only be viewed as excessive and unwarranted.
As Linda Sheehan, the wife of Raymond Sheehan’s twin brother Vincent noted in her victim impact statement, “ . . . [T]he jury recognized that Barbara’s actions on February 18, 2008, were violent and criminal and could not go unpunished.”
Today, Acting Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron sentenced Ms. Sheehan to five years in prison, followed by 2½ years post-release supervision. In passing judgment, Justice Kron noted that Raymond Sheehan was not the person on trial and that his [Justice Kron’s] goal was to impose a fair sentence in one unique, specific case involving the defendant, Barbara Sheehan, and the shooting of Raymond Sheehan. “The defendant was convicted of a crime of consequence,” he stated. “Mere hours before this crime occurred, Barbara [Sheehan] was in the safe haven of the home of her friend . . . In the seconds before she committed this violent crime she had already shot Raymond Sheehan a number of times with the .38 caliber revolver. Society certainly must be concerned with self-help, violent behavior that is not sanctioned by the law.” I agree. Under all of the circumstances of this case, the sentence imposed was appropriate and commensurate with the seriousness of the offense.
I want to commend our prosecution team, Senior Assistant District Attorney Debra L. Pomodore and Assistant District Attorney Donna Aldea, who is our Counsel for Special Litigation. They are to be praised for their professionalism and their dedication and the manner in which they handled both the investigation and prosecution of this matter.
The complete release is available as a PDF download.
Readers of this blog posting who have unique insight to the issue and incidents mentioned above are encouraged to open up and comment on their perspective by leaving a comment. Get the media out of the way and speak your mind here and now.
NYC Media Bypass
