Categories for In-Depth

Jan 28

2026

State troopers face light discipline for serious misconduct

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The Gray Rider, a statue dedicated to state troopers, outside of the New York State Police Headquarters in Albany, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The New York Times. This story is co-published with The New York Times and New York Focus. An investigator with the New York State Police helped get a friend’s traffic tickets reduced “in exchange” for her sexually explicit photos, according to a disciplinary letter from 2017. Another stunned a combative suspect with his Taser in 2020 and held down the trigger for 33 seconds, twice the amount of time widely considered dangerous and potentially fatal. Some officers[...]

Posted 5 days ago

Jan 22

2026

Misconduct allegations could endanger drug convictions

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In a lawsuit, two former employees of the Niagara County Forensics Lab have accused a former director of mismanagement and misconduct that legal experts say could compromise criminal convictions that relied on the lab’s analysis. The plaintiffs, a father and daughter, claim Kori Ortt-Gawrys — the sister of state Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt —  harassed and defamed them over a two-year period, compelling one to quit and the other to retire early. The father, Thomas DiFonzo, claims Ortt-Gawrys turned on him after she pushed him to certify a lab chemist to do forensic drug analysis for criminal cases. DiFonzo[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Jan 9

2026

Wegmans surveilling shoppers, collecting data

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The word is out: Wegmans Food Markets is snooping on its customers. The Rochester-based grocery chain isn’t just using facial recognition technology in some of its stores — a practice which has generated controversy following a report by The Gothamist on its use in New York City. Investigative Post has found that Wegmans is tracking and collecting data on customers from the moment they enter the parking lot to the moment they check out. The company won’t say whether it’s using facial recognition technology in any of its stores in Western New York.  As soon as a shopper pulls into the[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Dec 23

2025

Subsidies, nonprofits reduce Buffalo taxes by $20M

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The Delaware North building, recipient of major tax breaks. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. The City of Buffalo last fiscal year missed out on $20 million in revenue due to a variety of property tax exemptions and abatements, according to a recently released audit. That’s the biggest loss the city has recorded since it began tabulating the figure in 2017, city financial audits show. For a city facing a current-year deficit that could be as high as $54 million, the uncollected property tax is “obviously a concern,” said Benjamin Swanekamp, who will be Ryan’s deputy mayor overseeing tax and finance[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Dec 17

2025

STAMP data center could jack up power bills

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A national builder is once again proposing to construct a massive data center at Genesee County’s STAMP industrial park, one that would use so much electricity that it could drive up costs for residential and commercial consumers.  The data center’s power demands could also hamstring efforts to recruit other businesses to the industrial park, which has struggled to attract tenants despite a state investment of $100 million. A proposal filed with Genesee County officials on Friday from Stream Data Centers for a 2.2-million-square-foot facility states it would require some 500 megawatts of electricity — 83 percent of all power that[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 9

2025

Local police who cooperate with ICE

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The Cheektowaga Police Department heads the list of a half-dozen local law enforcement agencies that are cooperating with federal agencies to detain and deport migrants. So far this year, police in the Buffalo suburb have turned over at least 21 people to federal immigration agents after detaining them for low-level offenses like shoplifting. Sheriff offices in Erie and Niagara counties are also working with U.S. Border Patrol and ICE. So are police in Lewiston, North Tonawanda and Amherst, though to a lesser extent.  Buffalo police do not appear to collaborate with immigration authorities. Mayor-elect Sean Ryan said it’s not the[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Dec 4

2025

Lack of medical care led to prison deaths

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  Jason “Poppy” Phillips’ family protest outside Greene Correctional Facility where Phillips died in December 2023. Video by by Angus Mordant for The Marshall Project. Ashley Dolcy heard panic in her husband’s voice. On most evenings, they would talk after she returned home from her job as an assistant principal at a school in the Bronx. Jason “Poppy” Phillips would call on a prison-issued tablet from his cell at Greene Correctional Facility near Albany. On Dec. 14, 2023, he told her that, since lunch, he’d increasingly had trouble breathing and swallowing. Alarmed that Phillips was struggling to breathe while locked[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Nov 18

2025

Deportee: “I shouldn’t have lost my fingers”

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The federal ICE detention center in Batavia. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. Military-style raids by U.S. immigration agents — many of them filmed and glossily produced for television and social media — have become a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s second term. Early raids involved the capture of nearly 600 migrants in New York, New Jersey and other states. The government released images of migrants in shackles, marching toward a military plane that would deport them. Chidi Nwagbo, 58, a Nigerian man who’d lived in the United States since 1988, saw those raids unfold in real time from his home[...]

Posted 3 months ago
Investigative Post