50 Search Results for police cars

Jan 9

2023

Council presses Brown on blizzard response

Published by

Reeling from the deaths of more than 30 residents — among at least 44 fatalities across the region — Buffalo’s Common Council is asking a lot of questions about the city’s readiness and response to the Christmas blizzard. Today the Common Council will consider items filed by three of its members, all demanding information and action from Mayor Byron Brown’s administration. On Dec. 30, South District Council Member Chris Scanlon filed resolutions asking for, among other things: An inventory of vehicles and other equipment available to the city’s fire, police, and public works departments. The use of federal COVID relief[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 24

2020

Safety concerns for ill-equipped Buffalo cops

Published by

Two Buffalo police officers have tested positive for COVID-19, about 10 others are isolating themselves, and yet more are working without protective gear such as face masks to reduce the chances they’ll become infected with the virus, says John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association.  The shortage of working police cars, paired with the department’s coronavirus sick time policy, is putting more officers at risk, he said. Evans and his union are presently the prime source of information on the health of city police officers because the Brown administration is not releasing details, unlike other law enforcement agencies[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Aug 22

2019

Cop car shortage sidelines new officers

Published by

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council have shortchanged the Buffalo Police Department’s police fleet in recent years. They’ve replaced cars at less than half the rate the police department has lobbied for, and which is considered best practice by experts in fleet maintenance. Last week, Investigative Post reported on the sorry state of affairs. The police department has too few patrol cars, we found, and many of the cars that are in service are in poor repair. The situation, said John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, is “dire.” “There aren’t enough cars for the patrol[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Mar 23

2012

Weekend News Cafe

Published by

The NYPD, people of color and the Buffalo connection Reports that New York City police have been spying on Muslims in the Buffalo area – without notifying the feds – fits a pattern that is coming under increasing criticism. The NYPA has an aggressive stop-and-frisk policy in NYC that targets men of color. Reports The New York Times: The Police Department has said that it conducted a record 684,330 stops last year, and that 87 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic. One target wrote about his experience of being stopped five times by the police: These experiences changed[...]

Posted 13 years ago

Apr 14

2025

Granville update, plus other Monday morning reads

Published by

The Buffalo Police Department has put five officers on administrative leave as it continues to investigate the department’s response to the incident last April in which Erie County Sheriff Narcotics Chief D.J. Granville hit seven parked cars in his county-owned pickup truck. Police also, on the day the statute of limitations was set to expire, issued citations to Granville for leaving the scene of an accident. One of the five officers suspended is Lt. Lucia Esquilin, Granville’s sister-in-law, who responded to the scene and signed off on reports related to the incident. The other four were Police Officers Brittany Bartels,[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Mar 31

2025

D.J. Granville and the “blue wall of silence”

Published by

At the heart of the scandal enveloping Erie County Sheriff John Garcia and his chief of narcotics, D.J. Granville, is the so-called “blue wall of silence” — the unwritten understanding that law enforcement officers protect one another by refusing to report or corroborate wrongdoing among their ranks. For nearly a year Granville has been protected by that code. A deposition the narcotics chief gave for a lawsuit in November — nearly seven months after the incident that in recent weeks has made him famous — illustrates his own commitment to it. First, a refresher: Granville last April 11, while driving his[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Mar 13

2025

Hit-and-run narcotics chief a prolific political donor

Published by

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia (left) and Chief of Narcotics Daniel J. Granville (right) at a press conference Tuesday. Photo courtesy 7 News. Daniel J. Granville — the Erie County Sheriff’s chief of narcotics who last April plowed his county-owned pickup truck into at least seven parked cars on Buffalo’s West Side — is a prolific donor to local politicians. So is his wife, former Buffalo police crime scene technician who now works for the Buffalo Sewer Authority.  And so is his sister-in-law, the Buffalo police lieutenant who supervised the police response to the accident scene — and who is now[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Mar 11

2025

Coverup of hit-and-run by county’s narcotics chief?

Published by

Last April, the Erie County Sheriff’s chief of narcotics, while driving a county-owned vehicle late at night, struck at least seven parked cars on Buffalo’s West Side, several of them as he drove the wrong way down a one-way street.  Chief Daniel J. Granville — who goes by DJ — was driving “in an impaired condition,” according to one of a half-dozen claims that so far have cost county taxpayers $60,000 to settle.  But the accident report generated by the Buffalo cops who responded to the incident gives no indication Granville, 47, was tested for alcohol, drugs or other impairments[...]

Posted 2 months ago