Tag: Erie County Sheriff

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 3 days 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 1 week ago

Jul 30

2025

Lawmaker asks state AG to investigate Granville incident

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Sheriff John Garcia and Chief of Narcotics D.J. Granville at a March press conference. A city lawmaker wants the state attorney general to investigate the incident in April 2024 in which the Erie County Sheriff’s narcotics chief plowed his county-owned pickup truck into seven parked cars on the city’s West Side. There are currently three inquiries into the incident involving Chief D.J. Granville, which Investigative Post first reported in March. Niagara District Common Council Member David Rivera — a retired city detective  who chairs the Council’s Police Oversight Committee — on Monday appealed to Attorney General Letitia James to launch[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

May 19

2025

‘Hostile takeover’ of union by Granville supporters

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Members of the union that represents Erie County Sheriff’s officers last Tuesday voted to provide $25,000 toward paying the lawyers representing D.J. Granville, the narcotics chief who last April plowed his county-owned pickup truck into seven parked cars on Buffalo’s West Side. But some union members are crying foul on the decision and petitioning for a second meeting to reconsider the matter. “This was an attempted hostile takeover of our PBA’s democratic process by D.J. Granville and a small group of his supporters,” said one union member, who spoke to Investigative Post on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.[...]

Posted 3 months ago

May 18

2025

Sheriff John Garcia’s disdain for the law

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Erie County Sheriff John Garcia has gotten himself sued by The New York Times for stonewalling a Freedom of Information request from the newspaper. The Times filed an FOI request last August 12 seeking assorted police disciplinary records. For example, the Times asked for what are called “Brady-Giglio” lists, named for court decisions that require prosecutors to provide defense attorneys with information about officers that might impugn their credibility with judges and jurors.  By law, the sheriff’s office had five business days to acknowledge receipt of the request. It failed to do so until Jan. 23 of this year, when[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Mar 31

2025

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

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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 5 months ago

Mar 13

2025

Hit-and-run narcotics chief a prolific political donor

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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 5 months ago

Mar 11

2025

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

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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 6 months ago
Investigative Post