Tag: City Hall

Jan 24

2017

Pridgen wants Buffalo police accredited

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Updated Jan. 25, 2017  Common Council President Darius Pridgen proposed a resolution Tuesday asking the Buffalo Police Department to seek accreditation as a means of bringing about improvements in the department. It was unanimously approved. As reported last week by Investigative Post, accreditation by outside evaluators is a long-ignored requirement of the City Charter. The resolution also calls for the police to provide updates to the Council on its application for accreditation. “That sounds very, very important to have the state or someone who then has oversight and then can come in and look at where there are pieces where we miss,”[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 19

2017

City Hall ignoring police mandate

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Many police departments get what amounts to a stamp of approval from outside evaluators that review, advise and ultimately accredit them as adhering to best practices. But not Buffalo. The Buffalo Police Department is currently not accredited, even though it’s required by the City Charter. The issue of accreditation is more than a technical matter. The process is intended to improve the professionalism and efficiency of police departments, and Buffalo faces numerous challenges in this regard. The department has a middling track record of solving crime, its relationships with the minority community is strained, and its training involving use of[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jan 10

2017

Porat talks police training on WBFO

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Investigative Post reporter Daniela Porat discusses police use of force training in light of the recent incident involving a Buffalo Police Department SUV striking a civilian who was holding a knife. The interview aired Tuesday on WBFO’s Press Pass. Porat previously reported on the department’s lack of training in the use of force and weapons, and a lack of urgency by city leaders in addressing the problem. She and Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney also discussed the issue in a recent podcast.

Posted 8 years ago

Dec 14

2016

City Hall in no rush to improve police training

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Buffalo officials are in no hurry to address the police department’s lack of training in tactics that many other cities have deployed in response to police shootings of African Americans in Ferguson and elsewhere. In fact, Mayor Byron Brown said he is satisfied with the status quo. He said he sees no need to improve training programs that show officers how to de-escalate potentially volatile situations and make restrained use of force in dealing with citizens. “We are very pleased that when you look at what’s happening here in Buffalo versus other parts of the country, we are not experiencing[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Oct 31

2016

Tempting a Ferguson in Buffalo

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As the body count rises – nearly 1,800 civilians fatally shot by police nationwide the past two years – a growing number of law enforcement agencies are retraining their officers to minimize their use of force. Police are being trained on how to de-escalate volatile situations and make smart use of their firearms. It’s part of a policy and cultural shift intended to avoid the Ferguson-type scenarios that have rocked city after city the past couple of years. “Police departments really need to embrace this and get in front of this,” said Paul O’Connell, a policing consultant and professor of criminal[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Aug 22

2016

Looking for lead (in all the wrong places)

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Neighborhoods on the city’s East and Lower West Sides are “ground zero” for the worst lead poisoning problems in all of Upstate New York. Lead paint is considered the culprit, but the crisis in Flint, Michigan, has raised questions about the safety of the drinking water in cities like Buffalo. The testing program used by Buffalo to determine whether drinking water is safe does not target the minority neighborhoods where the lead poisoning problem is concentrated, an analysis by Investigative Post has found. Instead, the city has focused on predominantly white neighborhoods in North and South Buffalo that report few,[...]

Posted 9 years ago

May 25

2016

Recycling on the rise in Niagara Falls

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A year after getting serious about recycling, Niagara Falls has increased its recycling rate by 50 percent and cut the amount of trash it dumps in landfills by almost 20 percent. The city’s recycling coordinator credits the success and the 17 percent curbside recycling rate over the past year to an effective marketing campaign led by a quirky mascot named Totes McGoats, whose outfit cost $100. “The whole purpose wasn’t to be a man in a mask,” Brook D’Angelo, the recycling coordinator for Niagara Falls, said about the mascot. “The whole purpose was to have another way to educate the[...]

Posted 9 years ago

Apr 27

2016

Buffalo snubs county on lead poisoning

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Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz’s lead prevention proposal is stuck in the County Legislature’s Finance and Management Committee after city officials twice declined invitations to appear to answer questions. The absence of city officials at these committee meetings is a continuation of a pattern on the part of City Hall officials, which Poloncarz administration officials fear is playing into the hands of suburban Republican legislators who appear reluctant to support the county executive’s initiative. Majority Leader Joseph Lorigo said during an April 7 committee meeting that he had invited Louis Petrucci, the city’s assistant director of permit and inspection services,[...]

Posted 9 years ago
Investigative Post