Articles for Geoff Kelly

Nov 22

2022

Lawsuit: Police captain went on racist ‘rant’

A Buffalo police captain told officers she supervised that Black cops were more likely to cheat on their wives than white cops. The captain said she’d be suspicious if she saw a Black man in her neighborhood. She claimed white police officers suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from working in Black neighborhoods, but Black officers did not, because they were more accustomed to violent crime. The captain told Black officers they should try to understand how the criminality of Black people justified some racism. These claims are detailed in a lawsuit filed Monday evening in federal court by two Buffalo police[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Nov 14

2022

Testimony: Buffalo cops use of N word not uncommon

A retired Buffalo police lieutenant testified in April he’d heard his colleagues use racist epithets when dealing with Black members of the public. “Probably every officer” had used the “N word” at one point or another, according to retired Lt. Thomas Whelan, a former supervisor with the department’s controversial Strike Force unit. He admitted he’d used it himself. “Have I ever said it?” Whelan said in a deposition for a lawsuit accusing the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Police Department of racially discriminatory policing. “Yes, I have, obviously. I’m a human being.” Racist language. Loose oversight and discipline. Little[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Nov 9

2022

There was no “red wave”

Last month, Assemblyman Pat Burke thought his reelection campaign was in trouble. The campaign’s polling showed his Republican opponent, Sandy Magnano of West Seneca, running surprisingly strong for a first-time candidate who embraced extreme right-wing positions, ranging from 2020 election denial to Q Anon-style conspiracy theories. A tracking poll showed fewer than 50 percent of those who responded were committed to voting for Burke, following a barrage of negative campaign ads paid for, in large part, by the state Republican party. The GOP targeted Burke — a left-leaning Democrat originally from South Buffalo, now an Orchard Park resident — as[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Nov 3

2022

Blame the cops and DA, not bail reform

The murder of Keaira Bennefield has become a rallying cry for opponents of bail reform. Had her husband, Adam Bennefield, not been released after being charged with misdemeanor assault, she’d still be alive, they assert. But a half-dozen attorneys told Investigative Post the fault lies not with bail reform but Cheektowaga police and Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. Police and prosecutors could have charged Adam Bennefield with more serious crimes that would have made him bail eligible, befitting the assault on his wife a week before authorities say he shot her to death. According to Judith Olin, director of[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 25

2022

City holding millions in other people’s money

The City of Buffalo took in $4.3 million from its annual auction of tax-delinquent properties in 2019, the year the Brown administration changed how it handles the money those foreclosure sales generate. Out of that $4.3 million, the city paid itself $700,000 to account for the back taxes and fees that led the properties to the auction block. That left $3.6 million is surplus, much of which rightfully belongs to the individuals who lost their properties to foreclosure. For them, the money represents their remaining equity after all their creditors — the city, the banks, the utility companies — are[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 18

2022

Activists sue Buffalo over Council redistricting

Buffalo’s Common Council members might have thought this summer’s contentious redistricting was behind it. If so, they were wrong. This afternoon 11 Buffalo voters and good-government organizations filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court, asking a judge to reject a redistricting plan adopted by the city’s Council in July and signed by Mayor Byron Brown in August. The city’s redistricting process, led by the Council, “failed to meet the basic requirements of the law,” the Article 78 complaint contends. Those failures deprived city residents of meaningful opportunities to take part in the process, according to the complaint. The plaintiffs[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 11

2022

Kelly discusses police contract on WBFO

In July, Buffalo’s police union won a big victory in its three-year-old (and counting) negotiations with Mayor Byron Brown’s administration for a new contract. A state arbitration panel granted police — whose contract expired in 2019 — raises and back pay worth as much as $15 million. The city got nothing in return: none of the reforms protestors and elected officials clamored for in the summer of 2020, no new managerial rights, not even a reinstatement of a residency requirement that expired with the old contract. Geoff Kelly reported the story two weeks ago, before the Brown administration had even[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 28

2022

Raises (but no reforms) for Buffalo police

Buffalo police just got a raise. The city got nothing — no concessions, no reforms — in exchange. That’s the upshot of more than three years of negotiations between the Brown administration and the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, whose contract expired in July 2019. When talks stalled in early 2021, the dispute put in the hands of a state arbitrator, who was empowered only to deal with pay. Reform — the mantra of demonstrators and elected officials alike in the summer of 2020 — was sidelined. On July 19, a state arbitration panel awarded Buffalo police raises and retroactive pay worth[...]

Posted 3 years ago