Investigative Post

HarpData, already months behind completing a project to provide wi-fi access to thousands of Buffalo students, sought work on another school district job earlier this year and is now complaining it didn’t get the contract. The district’s purchasing director rejected the company’s bid, deeming HarpData a “non-responsible bidder.”  Now, three months later, HarpData is crying […]

Today Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told reporters that it was the responsibility of the city’s police union to make its contract public. “Why doesn’t the media ask the police union to make the contract public?” Brown said. “Why are the requests always of the city?” Well, the union did release it — yesterday. The Buffalo […]

A group of local community activists have launched an online petition demanding the resignation of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. The activists say Brown has failed to show leadership in the two weeks since demonstrators took to the streets to protest police brutality. The petition states: From the start on Saturday, May 30th, protestors were met […]

The City of Buffalo has three separate police oversight boards, but they’ve done little, if anything, to bring bad cops to heel.  One can’t. It’s an advisory panel with no power beyond its voice.  One won’t. It’s a subcommittee of the Common Council that seldom meets and does not investigate police misconduct.  And the third, […]

Geoff Kelly reported last Friday on the suspect claims of local politicians and police officials that outside agitators were behind disturbances at anti-racism protests here in Buffalo. Kelly found all but one person arrested in relation to the protests is from the Buffalo area and that much of the so-called intelligence cited by authorities was based […]

To hear senior staff tell it, the Buffalo school district never should have gone through with a contract awarded to HarpData to provide wi-fi service to students in two low-income neighborhoods. The firm’s finances were suspect, according to the district’s purchasing director, and the district’s unusual decision to waive a performance bond put the school […]

Mayor Byron Brown was interviewed Friday evening by CNN’s Chris Cuomo and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. To both, he lamented the injury to Gugino and praised his police commissioner for quickly suspending the officers and launching an internal investigation of their actions. Brown also defended the Emergency Response Team officers who marched past Gugino as he […]

Politicians and police have been raising the spectre of “outside agitators” since the day protests began in Buffalo. For the most part, local media has amplified the message: Outsiders are slipping into town to incite violence and destruction.  But arrest records suggest that narrative is not true. And officials allow that much of the intelligence […]