Categories for News

Aug 21

2025

Comptroller: Granville was off duty, liable for damages

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  Report from Michael Wooten, 7 News D.J. Granville was off duty when he crashed his county-owned pickup truck into seven parked cars last year on Buffalo’s West Side, News 7’s Michael Wooten reported Tuesday evening. Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick told Wooten in an interview that the news comports with county payroll records. And Hardwick said it means Granville, not county taxpayers, should be on the hook for the cost of the damage he did to the truck he was driving and the cars he hit. Granville pleaded guilty last week to one criminal misdemeanor count of reckless driving[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 20

2025

State attorney general cites Buffalo cop for misconduct

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A Buffalo cop, in the course of responding to a domestic abuse call, tried to solicit a date with the woman who made the call, then attempted to sell her a car. The same cop, in uniform and on duty, threatened the owner of an auto repair shop, saying he’d “fuck with him like never before” over a failed vehicle inspection. And finally, the cop — Officer Kiam Gunn, a seven-year veteran of the department — brandished a gun while off-duty at the Delaware Park basketball courts, after a couple asked him to stop smoking marijuana near their children.  “You[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 19

2025

Judge overturns immigration court arrest

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This story was produced in partnership with The Intercept, an award-winning investigative news outlet. Akela Lacy is a staff reporter with The Intercept. In a rare win against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month, a judge ordered that a detained 19-year-old asylum seeker be released back to his family.  Oliver Mata Velasquez’s arrest May 21 outside a immigration court in downtown Buffalo following his hearing on his asylum case was unlawful, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo wrote.  “Mata Velasquez followed all the rules,” Vilardo wrote. “On the other hand, the government changed the rules by fiat, applied them retroactively,[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 15

2025

Narcotics chief pleads guilty in hit-and-run

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Attorney Terry Connors , left, and Erie County Sheriff’s Chief of Narcotics D.J. Granville at Buffalo City Court on Friday. Updated Friday at 6 p.m. None of the five Buffalo cops who responded to the scene of D.J. Granville’s spree of collisions with parked cars last April have cooperated with prosecutors investigating the incident. Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman, at a press conference Friday afternoon at Buffalo City Court, said he found the officers’ unwillingness to sit for depositions or meet with his investigators “very frustrating.” Granville, the Erie County Sheriff’s narcotics chief, was driving a county-owned Dodge Ram[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 14

2025

Feds fault Scanlon campaign for Hatch Act violations

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x Federal investigators last week ruled that Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s campaign violated laws prohibiting elected officials from using their offices or public resources for political gain. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel found the acting mayor’s campaign on four occasions violated the federal Hatch Act: Issuing a press release “using official City of Buffalo resources” attacking state Sen. Sean Ryan in response to Ryan’s criticism of conditions at the city’s animal shelter. Mailing invitations to a December fundraiser using the mayor’s office in City Hall as the return address on the envelopes. Publishing links to the Scanlon campaign’s social[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 13

2025

Scanlon administration ignoring records request

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Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s administration is once again violating the Freedom of Information Law. The latest example: For more than three months, City Hall has ignored a FOI request for documents related to the proposed sale of the city’s parking ramps. Scanlon wants to sell four downtown parking structures to an independent authority in a bid to close budget gaps. City Hall ignoring requests for public records has proven to be a pattern. Earlier this year, the Scanlon administration ignored a request for Scanlon’s daily calendar until Investigative Post appealed. Those records ultimately revealed Scanlon had held meetings where the[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 12

2025

Absentee landlord hit with historic fine

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The Elmwood Heights Apartments are for sale as former owner faces record fines. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. The absentee owner of a Buffalo apartment complex may soon be hit with the largest fine ever imposed by Buffalo Housing Court. On July 23, Housing Court Judge Phillip Dabney issued a $1.3 million judgment against Elmwood Heights LLC, the owner of the now-vacant Elmwood Heights Apartments at 597-605 Elmwood Ave., at the corner of Lexington Ave. The three-story, 49-unit apartment complex, which has been in Housing Court since 2018, was condemned in March 2023 by the city for unsafe living conditions, with[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Aug 8

2025

ICE separates parents, 2-year-old child

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Carlos Molina Manzaneda, Rebeca Ferreira Castillo and their child, Ines. Photo provided. On a late July morning, immigration authorities in Western New York targeted the Fredonia Walmart, ultimately detaining a husband and wife. The action separated the parents from Ines, their two-year-old child.  For two weeks now, the toddler has cried nightly, her father said, and has at times refused to eat, not understanding why her parents haven’t come home. A member of the couple’s extended family is caring for the child, who was born in Buffalo in 2023. “It’s like a piece of you is ripped out, like a[...]

Posted 6 months ago
Investigative Post