No other media bothered to run a story based on the information released yesterday by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office: the DA Complaint, the cell phone video, the CCTV video, dozens of audio recordings.
You might think it is a major story when video of a cop punching and kicking a suspect on the streets of New Rochelle would warrant coverage.
You would be wrong.
News12 and the Journal News portrayed the entire matter as a dispute between Mimi Rocah and area PBAs.
News12: Police, prosecutors clash after DA charges New Rochelle detective with attempted assault
“I’ve watched the video; you know they claim to have done a full investigation, but I don’t think that’s possible. I think this is nothing more than a politically motivated decision,” says Olson.
In response, the DA’s office sent News 12 the complaint against Vaccaro, which describes the detective’s actions that day including an admission that he hit the suspect.
Response to what? We have ALL the records — the DA complaint, the two videos and dozens of police calls and radio traffic. The DA sent them because we asked for them three days ago.
Although News12 did not find the time to cover the video of Vaccaro repeatedly punching a suspect in the face they managed to run TWO stories last month about Vaccaro rescuing a kitten!
No. Seriously.
News12: New Rochelle police detective saves kitten from inside car engine
News12: Kitten trapped in car engine adopted by ‘Cat Daddy’ rescuer
The News12 “Cat Daddy” stories ran after Vaccaro had been suspended 30 days by the New Rochelle Police Department and referred to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office criminal charges.
Patch did the same thing.
Patch: Lucky ‘Nugget’ Finds A Forever Home With His Rescuer
Patch: Catastrophe Avoided, Community Rallies To Rescue Trapped Kitten
At least Patch had the good grace to acknowledge the New Rochelle PBA publicity stunt after Vaccaro was criminally charges.
Patch: Indictment Of New Rochelle Kitten-Rescuing Cop Riles Police
News12 just ignored their own failure.
Here is the LoHud take:
Charge against New Rochelle detective triggers feud between police, Westchester DA
LoHud ran a story last night at 7:30 p.m. without mentioning the DA Complaint, the cell phone video, the CCTV video, dozens of audio recordings.
They got around to updating the story with the video after 10:00 a.m. this morning — about a full day after we ran our story.
New York TV stations did nada with the video.
New York City newspapers did diddly with the video.
Patch did zip with the video.
Daily Voice went radio silent with the video.
Who did I miss?
UPDATE: WCBS-TV ran a story with the video more than a day later.
UPDATE: News12 ran a story with the video more than three days later — on a Friday night — cited our reporting that Vaccaro had 17 Internal Affairs investigations without attribution.
News12: New video shows altercation between man and New Rochelle detective charged with assault
News12 “just learned” Vaccaro had 17 investigations but nature unknown but did run 2 “kitten rescue” stories on Vaccaro after Talk of the Sound reported on details of all 17 IA cases 86 days earlier.
If you want to know what’s going in New Rochelle, Talk of the Sound is your only option.
Links to Past Michael Vacarro Stories + Records, Videos, Audios, etc.
Kittens are less violent and more loveable. Or am I just stating the obvious here? Who doesn’t love a kitten?