Aug 20
2025
State attorney general cites Buffalo cop for misconduct
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A Buffalo cop, in the course of responding to a domestic abuse call, tried to solicit a date with the woman who made the call, then attempted to sell her a car.
The same cop, in uniform and on duty, threatened the owner of an auto repair shop, saying he’d “fuck with him like never before” over a failed vehicle inspection.
And finally, the cop — Officer Kiam Gunn, a seven-year veteran of the department — brandished a gun while off-duty at the Delaware Park basketball courts, after a couple asked him to stop smoking marijuana near their children.
“You don’t know who I am? I could ruin your day,” Gunn said, according to the attorney general’s report. Gunn then walked to his car, put a pistol in the waistband of his shorts, returned to the courts and “lifted his shirt exposing the firearm.”
Based on these three incidents, which occurred in 2021 and 2022, the attorney general’s Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office determined Gunn “engaged in a pattern of abuse of authority and misconduct.”
The third incident — using his service weapon to intimidate the couple at the basketball courts — “could have resulted in criminal charges,” according to a July 25 letter to Buffalo Police Commissioner Alphonso Wright.
Instead, the department suspended Gunn for 45 days.
For the altercation at the auto shop, he was subject to a lecture from a deputy commissioner.
The domestic violence victim’s complaint was dismissed as “unfounded,” resulting in no discipline. “Pertains to a business transaction, determined to be civil in nature,” reads an unsigned notation in Gunn’s disciplinary file.
The Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office, or LEMIO, was created in 2021 to examine the records of cops who are the frequent subject of misconduct complaints, both from civilians and from their supervisors. By state law, a department must refer any officer who racks up five or more complaints within two years to LEMIO for investigation.
The office has released findings on 14 Buffalo cops since it was created, determining five of them — including Gunn — engaged in a “pattern of misconduct.”
Seven were cleared of misconduct, though in two cases the office was critical of how officers handled the incidents that landed them on LEMIO’s radar. The office closed investigations on two cops without findings because they left the force before the inquiries were concluded. One was later reinstated.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomLEMIO’s reports conclude with disciplinary and training recommendations for officers it finds guilty of persistent misconduct. A department must inform the attorney general in writing within 90 days how and whether it is acting on those recommendations.
In Gunn’s case, the attorney general noted that it was too late to discipline Gunn for the three incidents, as the statute of limitations had expired. The office recommended the department’s Internal Affairs Division come up with a plan “to prevent future incidents with Officer Gunn immediately” and, in the event of future transgressions, “impose progressive discipline that accounts for the violations described” in the attorney general’s report.
A police spokesman confirmed Gunn, who will be 47 in September, is currently on active duty and assigned to E District, which covers the northeast of the city. The spokesman said the department would have no comment on the matter “prior to responding directly to the Attorney General’s office.”
Gunn made $105,214 last year, according to city payroll records.
Gunn’s legal and financial troubles
The attorney general’s findings are not the only headache Gunn is facing.
Investigative Post last June profiled Gunn’s history of complaints and brushes with the law before he became a cop.
That report included the story of Rose Brown, who said she called police in 2022, seeking help in retrieving belongings from the apartment of her recently deceased fiancé.
Gunn, who responded to the call, wrote his phone number on a card where officers write incident reports and sent her a text the next day.
The text read: “ur new friend Kiam. Wen can I get a massage Rose.”
“He’s not supposed to do that on duty,” Brown told Investigative Post last summer. “I just lost my fiancé. That’s not right. That’s disrespect.”
Brown said she complained about Gunn’s advances to an officer at E District headquarters but didn’t hear back. In March of last year she filed a lawsuit in Buffalo City Court, saying she was “emotionally distraught” over her fiance’s death and Gunn’s actions caused “severe mental distress.” She sought $15,000 in compensation.
The case has been adjourned several times because Gunn’s lawyer failed to appear in court. On Monday afternoon neither Gunn nor his attorney appeared for a hearing, but agreed by phone to settle the matter for $7,500, payable in installments over 14 months.
Brown agreed to take the offer to bring the episode to a close.
“He damaged me too bad,” she told Investigative Post before the hearing.
Brown’s attorney, Brittany Penberthy, said the settlement represented a measure of accountability, but wondered why the department didn’t deal with the matter itself or include her complaint in Gunn’s referral to the attorney general.
“It’s particularly troubling that the BPD doesn’t seem concerned enough about Ms. Brown’s incident, though stemming from Mr. Gunn’s interactions with her as an officer, to investigate or minimally report the matter to the AG,” she said.
Monday’s hearing was the second time a court has ordered Gunn to pay a woman he solicited while on duty.
A judge in 2023 ordered Gunn to pay a settlement to Iesha Richardson, the abuse victim to whom he tried to sell a car after making sexual advances by text. Gunn took her to small claims court, alleging breach of contract, because she didn’t go through with a car purchase. He lost and the court instead awarded her $3,616 — the down payment she gave him for a car, plus fees.
The Navy Federal Credit Union last month initiated foreclosure proceedings against Gunn, alleging he stopped making monthly payments on a loan of $209,635 for a house he purchased in 2023.
He also owes $1,129 to a debt collector, according to the foreclosure filing, stemming from an unpaid credit credit card debt of $1,815 dating back to 2008.
Other Buffalo cops in the spotlight
The attorney general has found four other Buffalo cops guilty of “a pattern of misconduct.”
They are:
- Det. Richard Hy, known widely as “the Angry Cop” for the satirical videos he posts online. The attorney general found “Hy repeatedly discourteous and unprofessional during encounters with civilians and escalated the encounters, including by using physical force.”
- Officer Justin Ayala, who “engaged in a pattern of excessive force and abuse of authority,” according to the attorney general. LEMIO also found fault with the department’s investigations of complaints against Ayala, which included punching of a man while held down by other officers, pepper-spraying a handcuffed suspect, and using vile language toward a teen-age girl and her mother.
- Officer Majed Ottman, whose offenses include shooting a shoplifter at a drugstore where Ottman was working off-duty as a security guard. The attorney general noted that “the Department is seeking to terminate PO Ottman’s employment” and recommended it continue to do so.
- Officer Davon Ottey, who “engaged in a pattern of Fourth Amendment violations and First Amendment retaliation,” according to the attorney general. Ottey’s offenses include cursing at civilians, wrongful arrests, excessive use of force, brandishing a knife during an encounter with a civilian and lying about it, and spraying hand sanitizer on a man using a phone to record video of police.
Investigative Post asked the department to share its responses to the attorney general’s recommendations Hy, Ottman and Ottey, whose reports are all more than 90 days old. The department has not produced them.
The attorney general found “no pattern” of misconduct by seven Buffalo cops referred for investigation: Alexander Brennan, John Britzzalaro, Justin Tedesco, Jake Giarrano, Patrick Garry, Lawrence Briggs, and Mark Slawek.
