Latest news with #Stefanucci
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
City's Crimewatch site doomed by complaints
A Meadville Police Department website that had succeeded in its mission to enhance community engagement and help combat crime will be discontinued, the department announced Tuesday. Participation in Crimewatch comes to an end on Sunday, about 20 months after it was launched, and the end comes largely due to objections to the police blotter-style accounts of the department's arrests. The negative feedback persisted even after a deliberate shift in tone when concerns were aired during a Meadville City Council meeting in March, according to Chief Michael Stefanucci. Where the posts had sometimes taken a tongue-in-cheek approach to arrests and charges being reported, after that point there 'was less humor in them and just factual information,' he said. 'We still continued to get complaints of — 'We don't want our business or our nonprofit's name in there because that makes us look bad,' or 'Hey, I know that guy, he's a good guy, you shouldn't have put his name in there,' 'Hey, that person has mental health (issues), you shouldn't have put them in there,'' Stefanucci added. 'It just seems to be nonstop. Everybody has a reason not to want somebody in there or their business in there.' Like Stefanucci, City Manager Maryann Menanno pointed to 'relatively consistent complaints' in explaining the decision to end the city's subscription to the Crimewatch website. 'The cost of the subscription at this point isn't outweighing the amount of complaints we've had about it,' she said. Launched in October 2023, the Crimewatch site at cost the city $2,500 annually. It currently has 2,209 subscribers and has attracted nearly 51,000 page views this year. The city could continue to maintain the website without posting blotter entry accounts of police activity, but doing so wouldn't be worth the cost, according to Stefanucci, since it was the blotter entries that were responsible for the web traffic. 'If we're not posting the stories and the arrests, nobody's interested,' he said. 'When we started posting arrests that were made, misdemeanor and above only, we were picking up subscribers and page views — it was times ten. The numbers picked up insanely.' Finding the right balance between accounts that are both useful and unobjectionable would require more staff time than is feasible, according to Menanno. In addition to the arrest descriptions, the website offers visitors a chance to submit anonymous tips, register the location of their security cameras, pay parking fees, find other resources and more. Stefanucci said hundreds of tips had been received through the site and many had contributed to arrests. Most recently, Crimewatch tips had helped lead police to the arrest of four youths accused of assaulting another boy in an afterschool incident in Shadybrook Park. Other useful tips ranged from parents reporting where their underage children had been sold vaping products to numerous tips on the locations of people who had arrest warrants outstanding. One recent tip about a person with an outstanding warrant not only included the person's current location but also a picture of the person at that location, Stefanucci said. Another tip recently contributed to locating the whereabouts of a missing juvenile. Residents can still submit tips, the chief noted, but will have to call in to the department's dispatch desk at (814) 724-6100. Menanno acknowledged the appeal of increased anonymity through online tips, but said potential tipsters could still withhold their names or even mask their phone numbers if they called the department. Concerns about the Crimewatch site first became public in March when city resident John Hartnett addressed City Council after seeing a social media post that commented positively on the 'sense of funny' evident in the site's recent posts. While Hartnett commended the city for its effort at transparency, he questioned whether the seemingly cavalier attitude toward crime was fitting for a government site, especially since the people being identified on the site had not yet been convicted of the charges that were being reported. 'The statements seem kind of prejudicial, kind of stigmatizing,' Hartnett told council at the time. 'These narratives aren't becoming, I think, of something published by the city.' One account posted in late February, eight days before Hartnett addressed council, reported on a woman charged with misdemeanor counts of open lewdness and indecent exposure and a summary count of disorderly conduct. 'No happy meal for you,' the post began. 'With the recent nice weather we have had it seems to draw people out of the woodwork.' The post went on to describe how the woman allegedly opened her shirt to expose her sports bra to staff members behind the counter at Wendy's. 'As she left the restaurant,' the post continued, 'she pulled her shirt off and pulled down her pants to expose her buttocks and genitals to paying customers who probably did not have that on their 'things to see list' for the day.' Hartnett was happy to hear Tuesday that the site would be discontinued. Only a few days ago, he said, he had followed up on his address to council by meeting with Stefanucci and introducing him to a person who had been featured on the website. 'The article was not very nice,' Hartnett said. 'There's extenuating circumstances to every one of these stories, and we really need to humanize our neighbors that get involved in the criminal justice system rather than stigmatize them.'
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Yahoo
Gone in a SNAP: Those who lost benefits in e-theft won't get money replaced
Area residents who apparently had their federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits stolen electronically earlier this month have one thing in common — they won't be getting those lost funds replaced. Total benefit losses are estimated at more than $10,000 for the at least 71 Meadville residents who filed theft reports with Meadville Police Department on Feb. 12 and 13, Chief Michael Stefanucci told The Meadville Tribune. Additionally, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) said it received 105 cases of benefit theft from Crawford County on those two days. However, some of the 105 DHS reports could overlap with the 71 city police reports, according to the department. The residents had their electronic benefits transfer (EBT) accounts drained after a scheduled Feb. 12 disbursement of SNAP benefits, Stefanucci said. The actual total loss is even more than $10,000 with the likelihood there were additional cases that just weren't reported, the chief added. Those impacted won't have the lost funds replaced, Brandon Cwalina, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, said in an email Thursday to the Tribune. 'It is accurate that benefits stolen after December 20, 2024, cannot be replaced due to the end of Congressional authorization,' Cwalina wrote. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, had federal policy requiring states to replace benefits stolen in card skimming or cloning crimes between Oct. 1, 2022, and Dec. 20. 2024. But, Congress did not authorize an extension of the funds-replacement policy. 'We believe it was cyber-based,' Stefanucci said of how so many accounts locally were impacted at the same time. The victims' accounts had charges being made to their cards all over the country, suggesting it was an organized effort that could be selling the account information. 'The (account) numbers could have been taken two months ago and they were just waiting for a (monthly) reload (of funds),' Stefanucci said. 'It was a 'hit and move on' crime.' There was no indication the individual accounts had been hacked. Also, Stefanucci said officers checked area retailers that sell grocery items, but they did not find any skimming devices attached to point-of-sale card reading machines. A skimmer attaches to an ATM (automated teller machine) or other card-reading device. Disguised to look like part of the machine, the skimmer is then used to steal credit or debit card information when a customer inserts a card. Congressman Mike Kelly, a Republican whose district includes Crawford County, 'has received very few inquiries regarding the reported EBT thefts and investigations ongoing in the region,' Matt Knoedler, spokseman for Kelly, said in an email Thursday. 'At this time, we cannot comment on potential legislative action,' Knoedler added about possible renewal of the funds replacement benefit. 'But, we are continuing to monitor and review this matter at the federal level.' Meanwhile, state Sen. Michele Brooks, a Republican whose district includes all of Crawford County, calls the EBT thefts 'a national crisis.' 'It's happening throughout the country,' she said. The state Department of Human Services is looking at different ways potentially to safeguard accounts, Brooks added. One change would be making the four-digit personal identification number a six-digit number instead. Another would be to embed all EBT cards with a computer chip and make sure all point-of-sale terminals are chip readers. However, preliminary estimates are that could cost $7 million to $7.5 million for a complete rollout. 'We're trying to make it more complicated (to steal information) by making it more secure,' Brooks said. 'It (SNAP) is a federal program, but we need to have a conversation between the feds and the state. We need to work together and there needs to be a greater effort to mitigate scams.' State Rep. Brad Roae, a Republican whose district covers Meadville and central and western Crawford County, said he sympathizes with those who lost funds but noted it's up to Congress to authorize replacement of benefits, not Pennsylvania. 'Where would we get the the money (at the state level)?' Roae said. 'I don't know how it would work. It's a federal program. If the state refunded money, we'd have to cut somewhere else to offset the costs.'
