Articles for Investigative Post staff

Sep 29

2020

Merrill elected president of Investigative Post

Dr. Michael Merrill has been elected president of the board of directors of Investigative Post. Merrill is medical director, clinical performance management, with Independent Health. Before attending medical school, he worked as a newspaper reporter for three years after graduating from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. “Investigative Post is the most important nonprofit in Buffalo because it puts everybody on notice that if they misbehave, there’s a risk of getting caught,” he said. Merrill succeeds Jody Kleinberg Biehl. Previous presidents include two veteran investigative reporters, David Cay Johnston and Lee Coppola. “Mike has been an enthusiastic board member[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 24

2020

No more name tags for Buffalo cops

Concerned with officer safety following an uptick in online harassment, Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood is no longer requiring Buffalo cops to display name tags on their uniforms. Many officers had been ignoring the previous edict requiring officers to display their name tags on their outermost garments since anti-racism protests began in late May. Members of the public, including demonstrators, have said the absence of name tags makes it impossible to identify officers engaged in misconduct. According to Captain Jeffrey Rinaldo, the department’s spokesman, the policy was altered last Friday after more than a dozen police officers were doxed —[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 10

2020

Few arrested protesters being prosecuted

Authorities are prosecuting fewer than a quarter of the 54 protesters arrested in racial justice demonstrations staged in and around Buffalo since late May. Most of the charges initially brought against protesters were for nonviolent incidents like violating a curfew, disorderly conduct and harassment in the second degree. More serious charges included arson, aggravated assault of a police officer and criminal possession of a weapon. Most who were arrested have had their charges dismissed. Here’s the breakdown: 32 protesters had their charges dismissed by a judge. 11 received adjournments in contemplation of dismissal, or ACDs. 10 are headed toward prosecution.[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 3

2020

Buffalo cop under investigation after scuffle

A twice-suspended Buffalo police officer is under investigation by Internal Affairs after he was caught on camera Thursday afternoon punching a man on Elmwood Avenue. The officer, Richard Hy, was off-duty at the time and dressed in camouflage. He’s white, the man he punched was black, someone described by police and witnesses as displaying mental distress and violent behavior. The video was posted to Facebook and later deleted. The poster, Abu Pablo, wrote: “Person in military fatigues assaults mentally deranged man while I sip coffee.” Another witness told Investigative Post the video does not tell the full story. “This wasn’t[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 10

2020

Jail guard suspended after confrontation

An Erie County Sheriff’s Office employee has been placed on administrative leave after being caught on camera menacing Black Lives Matter protesters with a baseball bat during a march Saturday evening in South Buffalo. A video shared more than 300 times on Facebook shows a man wearing an “All Lives Matter” t-shirt climbing out of his pickup truck, then cursing and approaching protesters waving an aluminum bat. An estimated 100 to 150 protesters were marching near Mount Mercy Academy. Commenters on the post identified the man as a corrections officer with the Erie County Sheriff’s Office who was off-duty at[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 27

2020

Impact of Investigative Post reporting

Lawmakers have responded to stories published last year by Investigative Post on the heavy-handed way the state and City of Buffalo enforced traffic laws and punished drivers who failed to pay fines. In February 2019, Marsha McLeod reported that the city, in an effort to generate revenue, was aggressively enforcing traffic laws and had imposed 13 new fees and fines that drove up the cost of paying off their tickets. (Investigative Post readers subsequently selected the report as the best story of 2019.) In it, McLeod wrote: The city’s strategy is costing drivers a lot of money, and, in some[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 22

2020

Details emerge of police disciplinary records

Investigative Post has been combing through the documents it received earlier this week from the Buffalo Police Department that starts to paint a picture of officers most frequently investigated by Internal Affairs for inappropriate behavior. We’re seeking additional records to provide a more complete picture, but here is what we’ve ascertained so far: Seventeen of the 29 officers named in the documents live outside the city, many of them in West Seneca. Seventy-nine percent are white, vs. 67 percent of the department as a whole. This, in a city that is 56 percent minority. Their average pay is $100,200, slightly[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 20

2020

Buffalo police release disciplinary records

The disciplinary records of police officers across the state have been a well-guarded secret until last month, when the state Legislature and governor changed the law to make them public. Some of those records involving Buffalo police are now being disclosed, including 50 pages released Monday to media outlets including Investigative Post after we filed a request used the Freedom of Information Law. The records involve the disciplinary records of officers who have been investigated most often by the department’s Internal Affairs unit in the past five years. Buffalo police released information on the 10 percent of officers who received[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Articles for Investigative Post staff

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