Articles for Geoff Kelly

Oct 28

2020

M.T. Pockets gets liquor license renewed

Two months after an ugly altercation between bar patrons and Black Lives Matter demonstrators, M.T. Pockets remains open for business. In fact, the State Liquor Authority has just renewed the North Buffalo establishment’s liquor license for the next two years. At the same time, the authority has charged M.T. Pockets with two violations: “operating disorderly premises” and “failure to supervise.” The charges are a result of the Sept. 1 confrontation, according to Bill Crowley, an authority spokesman. The SLA opened an investigation shortly after the incident, Crowley told Investigative Post last month. At the time, Crowley said, the SLA was[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Oct 22

2020

Kelly discusses Delong transfer on WBEN

Lt. Michael Delong, under suspension for his vile, misogynist insult of a West Side woman this summer, wants a transfer to head up police units that investigate sex crimes or trains rookie cops. Geoff Kelly discusses the story on NewsRadio 930WBEN.

Posted 5 years ago

Oct 16

2020

He shoved a cop and got away with it – maybe

Back in June, acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Mark Grisanti shoved a Buffalo cop as police attempted to sort out an altercation between the judge and his wife, Maria Grisanti, and some neighbors. Police body-camera video, obtained and published earlier this week by Law360.com, has drawn considerable media attention. In the video, Maria Grisanti stomps about screaming obscenities at her neighbors and the cops. An officer tackles and cuffs her, prompting the judge — his t-shirt torn and hanging around his waist — to run across the street and try to wrestle the officer away from his wife.[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Sep 14

2020

Saturday’s shooting wasn’t Buffalo cop’s first

Karl Schultz, identified in press reports as the police officer who shot Willie Henley Saturday afternoon, has pulled the trigger on a civilian at least once before. In 2012, Schultz fired multiple shots at 17-year-old Wilson Morales on the city’s East Side. One of the bullets he fired left Morales paralyzed for life. The City of Buffalo settled a lawsuit with Morales in February for $4.5 million, the largest settlement of its kind in the city’s history. Schultz’s disciplinary history landed him on a list of officers, provided to Investigative Post by the Buffalo Police Department, investigated by Internal Affairs frequently[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Sep 2

2020

North Buffalo bar closes following ugly behavior

Racist taunts from patrons of a Hertel Avenue bar have led to its temporary closure due to violations of COVID regulations and a city employee being suspended for mooning demonstrators. Marchers demanding police reform and racial equality clashed with M.T. Pockets bar patrons Tuesday night, as the patrons hurled vile taunts and phrases, including the n-word, toward protestors. “You’re killing my business,” Philip Alagna, the bar’s owner, shouted from the patio as tensions escalated between the bar’s patrons and protesters, who had returned to the scene of an ugly incident Friday evening. Alagna is well known in Democratic politics and[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Sep 1

2020

Police transparency hinges on legal battle

For more than 40 years, state law and contractual agreements concealed police personnel records from public scrutiny. Complaints lodged against officers, investigations into misconduct, disciplinary actions, settlement agreements — all these tools for evaluating an officer’s suitability for the job — were almost completely inaccessible. That changed in June, when, in response to the nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, the New York State Legislature amended the state’s Civil Rights and Freedom of Information laws to make those records public. Buffalo’s police union is not surrendering those protections gracefully. The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association is challenging the new[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Aug 18

2020

Study: Buffalo finances among worst in US

Only one city in the country is suffering more than Buffalo from the financial devastation of the COVID crisis. And that’s Rochester, just an hour down the Thruway. A forthcoming study, the source of a New York Times analysis published Monday, projects Buffalo’s government is staring at a 15 to 20 percent shortfall in revenue in the current fiscal year — more than twice the average in the survey of 150 cities nationwide. Upstate New York’s largest cities — Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse — were ranked the most fiscally distressed municipalities in the nation. New York City ranked fifth, right[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Jul 28

2020

City Hall inertia on one-sided police contract

Reforming the Buffalo Police Department will require changes in the labor contract between the city and its police union. Major changes. An analysis by Investigative Post found the contract — a behemoth of a document comprising nearly 400 pages of agreements, amendments, arbitration awards and memoranda — is decidedly one-sided in favor of the union. It makes it tough to discipline officers accused of misconduct and deprives the police commissioner of management rights that are a given in many other departments. Investigative Post also determined that the administration of Mayor Byron Brown, who has lambasted the union contract, has never[...]

Posted 5 years ago