Camera credited for leads in arrest in fatal Lisbon Avenue stabbing
Buffalo police are again crediting the installation of a city surveillance camera for helping them crack a homicide case in the University Heights neighborhood.
Detectives on Friday charged Todd R. Heatley, 28, of Main Street with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Jacob Herbert at about 4:30 a. m. Oct. 31.
Police Commissioner H. Mc- Carthy Gipson said a city camera at the corner of Lisbon and Cordova avenues supplied leads and evidence in the investigation.
Herbert, 19, of Clarence, was stabbed several times outside a house party at 112 Lisbon Ave. and died in Erie County Medical Center.
It was the second time this year a city surveillance camera led detectives to a suspect in a University Heights slaying.
In May, Javon R. Jackson, 23, was gunned down on Main Street while celebrating his graduation from the University at Buffalo.
Police used video from a camera to zero in on DaMario Cordelius, 20, of Amherst, who was charged with second-degree murder.
Gipson would not reveal the details of what was caught on tape in the Herbert death, but he did say the information could be used to prosecute Heatley.
Police said they believe a fight or dispute occurred as people were leaving the house party that had been broken up by police earlier, on two separate occasions.
After being thrown out, Herbert apparently went back to the party to try and get back a $7 admission charge, Gipson said.
Heatley was performing as a disc jockey at the party, police said.
Heatley bills himself as a “trip hop” DJ and producer on a Facebook page for a band known as Modi Sines, which performed as part of the 2009 Buffalo Infringement Festival in Allentown this past summer.
Heatley, “a seasoned experimental spinner/mixer/musician,” was working on a debut album with his partner in Modi Sines, Marina Blitshteyn, a 2008 UB graduate who writes lyrics and sings, according to the Facebook page.
The Halloween party attracted as many as 200 people and had neighbors calling police to complain.
Some neighbors on Saturday criticized police for not doing more to break up the party.
“I mean, how long did you stay around, five, 10, 15 minutes? That’s not long enough,” said a woman who lives next door but declined to give her name.
Police described the party as being a group of college students and others. A police spokesman said the hosts had been issued a summons and revelers were told to go home.
About 15 to 20 people were still at the house at the time of the stabbing, the city’s 50th homicide this year.
The camera at Lisbon and Cordova, paid for by the University at Buffalo, was installed last year and is one of 83 currently active in the city.
The city expects to have another 42 cameras put in place in a second phase of installations.
The cameras have helped solve crimes, but their bigger benefit is in helping neighborhood residents feel safer, Gipson said.
“I’m sold on the camera system in Buffalo,” he said. “I can’t say they prevent crime, but they displace criminal activity.”
Store operator Saddam Mohsin, who runs Buff City Exclusives at Lisbon and Cordova avenues, said the camera has made a “big difference.”
The camera was added about a month after an attempted armed robbery of Mohsin’s store, and since then, “I feel safer with it here,” he said.
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