Articles for I'Jaz Ja'ciel

Nov 4

2025

The intersection of neglect and indifference

The intersection of Niagara and Jersey streets on Buffalo’s Lower West Side is riddled with trash, vacant lots, abandoned buildings and menacing squatters. It’s been going downhill for a decade or more. The only consistency has been the indifference of property owners and the inaction of city officials. Jersey Street resident David Eisenbart used to tend a community garden on a corner of the intersection, but he said that squatters in an abandoned cottage next door made the environment too dangerous. “Every once in a while I would go and mow, just because it got very bad, but the squatters were[...]

Posted 16 hours ago

Oct 21

2025

ICE: Unfettered and unaccountable

Federal agents stand guard outside an ICE detention facility in Newark, N.J. Photo credit: Victor J. Blue/The New York Times/Redux This story is republished from ProPublica, a nonprofit, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system. Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way to confirm[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Oct 10

2025

Watch: IP’s Geoff Kelly on Capital Tonight

Buffalo’s mayoral election is 25 days away. State Sen. Sean Ryan, the Democratic nominee, is the odds-on favorite to prevail. Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly appeared Thursday on Spectrum News’ Capital Tonight with Susan Arbetter to discuss the state of the race, as well as the brewing fight among Ryan’s fellow Democrats over who will fill his Senate seat come January. The scrapping over Ryan’s seat, which has been unfolding in the background for months, burst into the open on Thursday, when Ryan’s longtime political ally, Assembly Member Jonathan Rivera, declared his candidacy for the job. Zellner and Rivera both have[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Oct 7

2025

Pushing again for lead inspections in Buffalo

From left: Matthew Parham, Daniel Corbitt, Sarah Wooton, Dawn Wells-Clyburn and Alex Fehrman Updated Monday at 4:49 p.m. A group of tenants and community organizations on Tuesday appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit that sought more vigorous enforcement of a City of Buffalo program aimed at lead hazards in rental housing. The Partnership for the Public Good along with three other organizations and four tenants filed a lawsuit last July in State Supreme Court against the city. The lawsuit alleged that the Department of Permits and Inspections was failing to provide a clean and healthful environment for its residents by[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Sep 30

2025

Buffalo’s Housing Court: Fewer fines, lax collections

The City of Buffalo over the past six years has failed to collect $6.5 million in Housing Court fines that could help to address the city’s budget deficits. Since January 2020, Housing Court judges have issued $7,024,200 in fines, according to data Investigative Post obtained from the New York State Office of Court Administration. The city has collected $481,500, or 8.5 percent of the fines issued. And between 2017 and 2019, the city failed to collect another $6.8 million in Housing Court fines, according to city records. That’s more than $13 million the city has left on the table over[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 11

2025

Buffalo forfeits more than $1 million in federal lead funds

Signage in a lead abatement training facility. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. The City of Buffalo will return more than half of a $2 million federal grant it received in 2021 for lead hazard remediation. Investigative Post in May reported that the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency had spent only about a quarter of its Lead Hazard Reduction Program grant funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. BURA officials told Investigative Post in a statement that “the program remains in progress” and that $796,050.71 in grant funds have been earmarked or spent on lead remediation. That’s $300,000 more than[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Sep 10

2025

How the investigation on police misconduct was done

This story is co-published with The New York Times and New York Focus. It’s a followup to yesterday’s story about police officers who drive drunk, crash cars, and escape meaningful consequences. In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020, New York State repealed a law that for decades kept the disciplinary records of its police officers secret. The New York Times and New York Focus, a nonprofit newsroom, have since gathered more than 10,000 such files from around half of New York State’s nearly 500 law enforcement agencies. The documents, most[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Sep 9

2025

Police who drink, drive and avoid charges

Ronald W. Wilson, an investigator with the New York State Police, admitted to drinking and driving this vehicle in 2021 but received only a traffic ticket. Photo courtesy of the Orchard Park Police Department. This story is co-published with the New York Times and New York Focus. An Orchard Park police officer found the man on the shoulder of Southwestern Boulevard, standing near his crumpled black BMW, arguing with his girlfriend. It was 11 p.m. on a Saturday in 2021. The BMW had slammed into a Jeep, smashing its left taillight. White high heels were toppled on their sides on[...]

Posted 2 months ago