72-year-old Dwight Powers unexpectedly slipped from his chair and disappeared from the screen during a zoom conference call between about 20 people in the afternoon on Thursday. Witnesses told police that Powers was sitting in his home in Amityville, New York. His 32-year-old son Thomas Scully Powers suddenly appeared. After this, many people dialled 911 over video chat.
Suffolk County Police said “they all did the right thing.” Lieutenant Kevin Bearer, commanding officer of the Homicide Unit, told Newsday that “they were all concerned about their friend. It was terrible that they had to witness this.”
Police said officers later learned that Powers was killed by his son in his home. He said that the witnesses saw Powers falling and heard the sound of his tearing breath on the call.
Bearer told Newsday that it is not clear that during the video call someone actually saw Powers’ son stabbing him. He told the newspaper that “we don’t know what he saw.” There were many people in this conference call.
After the outbreak of the corona epidemic, community activities, large conferences, etc., have become a common method of mass communication after the closure. But the security of this video chat platform has been severely criticized after hackers made disturbances at news conferences, Bible study sessions, community meetings and graduation ceremonies. Malicious hackers used Nazi imagery, racist messages and child porn to perform extensively during the zoom call. In response, Zoom made a 90-day plan to fix the app’s vulnerabilities and issued security updates to curb so-called “zoom-bombers”.
The heinous murder of Powers with a knife on a zoom chat during the Corono Virus epidemic is the first of its kind. The police have not told anything about the motive behind the murder of the suspect. Bearer told Newsday that police do not think the alleged killing is related to the Corona virus epidemic. The police has also refused to give details of the nature of the zoom call citing confidentiality.
An anonymous witness told WABC that people had seen Scully-Powers picking up sheets from the bed and laying them on the ground, as if he wanted to cover something. Police said that after witnesses called 911, it took about 20 minutes to find out where Powers lived. Officers arrived at the father and son’s home within an hour of the alleged stabbing, according to a Suffolk County Police Department statement. According to the WABC report, Scully Powers opened the door and ran up the stairs.
A police spokesman told the Washington Post that Scully Powers then jumped from the second-floor window and ran. Scully Powers was arrested from about a mile away from the scene before 1 pm. He has been arrested for murder. Police said that he suffered minor injuries due to jumping through the window. He has been sent to the hospital for treatment.