Tag: Police

Apr 28

2022

Video: Police shoot car to car during wild chase

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Earlier this week, The Challenger — Buffalo’s leading African-American newspaper — published an article describing the March 29 police chase that started as a routine traffic stop at the foot of West Ferry and ended on the city’s East Side, with police surrounding and firing into the vehicle driven by 28-year-old Kente Bell. It was a wild chase, according to the account Erie County District Attorney John Flynn provided the media, lasting half an hour and stretching the breadth of the city, with shots fired by both Bell and police. Three officers and Bell were wounded by gunfire.  “Nine police[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Apr 24

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Pulled from WeeklyPost, our Sunday newsletter, with additions from stories published yesterday. Want to subscribe? It’s free.  It appears police forces around Western New York have more than a few bad apples. Charlie Specht of The Buffalo News reported Sunday that more than 225 police officers have been disciplined for misconduct since 2017. That amounts to 12 percent of officers in the police departments surveyed. Given what we’ve culled from reviewing disciplinary records of Buffalo police, it’s very likely that 12 percent is an undercount. (Let’s just say Internal Affairs in Buffalo isn’t very thorough or aggressive.) Also in yesterday’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 14

2022

A step backwards on police accountability

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Last summer, the state Legislature peeled away exemptions to the state’s Freedom of Information Law that made it difficult for the public to obtain video recorded on officers’ body cameras and related evidence. Awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature now — during “Sunshine Week” — is a bill making “technical corrections” to that measure.  In fact, transparency advocates say, the bill on Hochul’s desk will eviscerate it.  “This is a disaster for holding police accountable and for New York State’s Freedom of Information Law,” lawyer-journalist James S. Henry of Sag Harbor, one of the backers of the 2021 police accountability law,[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 7

2021

Where’s a cop when you need one?

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In Buffalo, crime — and the police response to it — is a tale of two cities. Let’s say you witness an assault in progress on the city’s East Side and call 911. That’s a high-priority call: The threat of harm is immediate and there is — or was, at the time of the call — a suspect on the scene to arrest. The patrol officers who field the call are going to hurry. But they may not arrive as quickly as you’d hope.  In 2019, the median response time for an assault in progress call in C and E[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 7

2021

How we did our 911 analysis

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Calculating response times from the 911 data acquired from Central Police Services is fraught with difficulty.  For each call, the 911 log provides the moment:  A 911 operator took the call. The call was transferred to a Buffalo Police Department dispatcher.  An officer accepted the call from the dispatcher. An officer reported arriving at the scene. The responding officer cleared the call. As far as the Buffalo Police Department is concerned, their responsibility begins with #2. From a 911 caller’s perspective, what matters is the time elapsed between #1 and #4, so that’s the basis of our calculations. However, it’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Oct 20

2021

Violent crime in Buffalo is declining, but still high

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Statistically speaking, Buffalo is safer today than it was when Mayor Byron Brown took office in 2006. But it doesn’t feel that way to Gayla Ross.  Ross lost her only son, Amir Jemes, in 2018. Jemes, 19, an aspiring musician, was shot and killed while being robbed on Littlefield Avenue on the city’s East Side. “Everyday somebody’s shooting, or somebody is getting shot, or somebody is dying, or somebody is getting robbed or mugged,” Ross told Investigative Post. “It’s not getting safer.” Citywide, however, violent crime is down substantially, as it is across the nation. An Investigative Post analysis shows[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 18

2021

911 calls down 5%; traffic stops up 48%

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You might imagine Buffalo police spend their shifts busting drug dealers, foiling burglaries and taking guns off the street. There’s some of that, certainly.  But an analysis by Investigative Post of five years of 911 calls shows that sort of policing accounts for only a sliver of what cops do. More than anything else, they hand out traffic tickets. A lot fewer people have called Buffalo police about crime in recent years, according to our analysis.  The number of 911 calls for high-priority crimes — such as shots fired, domestic violence and assaults in progress — fell almost 21 percent[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Apr 23

2021

Kelly talks police referendum on WBEN

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Geoff Kelly reported earlier this week about a petition effort to place a referendum on the city’s November ballot to establish an independent police review panel. He spoke Friday morning with Susan Rose and Brian Mazurowski on NewsRadio 930WBEN.  

Posted 3 years ago
Investigative Post

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