Tag: Police

Sep 20

2017

Buffalo police who cross the line

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Mayor Byron Brown established the Strike Force and Housing units to address the scourge of gangs, drugs and guns in Buffalo. While few argue with the mission of these police units, the way they go about their job is raising alarm, with some defense attorneys characterizing Strike Force and Housing Unit officers as “vigilantes” with a “cowboy mentality.”   “I think they have a complete disregard for the Constitution of the United States, and most importantly, the Fourth Amendment,” said Michael Stachowski, a Buffalo defense attorney. “They just seem to roust kids in the street, chase people, and hope they[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Sep 5

2017

Lawsuit alleges Buffalo police misconduct

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A coalition of community activists and attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Buffalo on Tuesday and sent a letter to State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman urging his civil rights division to investigative what they allege is a pattern of unconstitutional practices by the Buffalo Police Department against minority residents. Anjana Malhotra, co-author of the report and complaint, said her research uncovered a “pattern and practice of discriminatory and unconstitutional police practices.” “The fourth amendment guarantees to everyone equally that one has a right to be free of unreasonable seizures,” she said at a press conference Tuesday[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 23

2017

Heaney discusses homicides on WGRZ

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Jim Heaney tells Kelly Dudzik of WGRZ that Buffalo police have a poor track record of clearing homicides – generally solving a quarter to a third of murders in recent years. Departments nationally clear about 60 percent of homicides. Heaney’s comments were made in the context of plans announced by Common Council President Darius Pridgen to launch a newsletter that will feature murder victims. Pridgen, pastor of True Bethel Baptist Church, hopes the newsletter and a digital companion will help in some way to solve murders. Heaney and Steve Brown of WGRZ did stories in March of this year and[...]

Posted 7 years ago

May 16

2017

Police rifle purchase triggers concerns

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Community activists, echoing community distrust of law enforcement, have been advocating for change in the Buffalo Police Department. Better training to avoid situations like police using a patrol car to strike a suspect. Answers about the recent deaths of Wardel Davis and Jose Hernandez-Rossy during encounters with police. And more oversight of a department that clears officers of wrongdoing almost every time they are accused of using excessive force against civilians. The change activists are seeing involves not reform but rifles. And they’re alarmed by it. Buffalo police are buying approximately 115 semi-automatic rifles and 450 protective vests through a[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Mar 1

2017

Still getting away with murder in Buffalo

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Two years ago, Investigative Post and WGRZ teamed up to examine the Buffalo Police Department’s inability to solve murders. At the time, police were solving only about a quarter of homicides. A follow-up investigation which aired Wednesday on WGRZ found the department still has a low batting average. Police have cleared only 38 percent of murders committed in the past three years, including 25 percent last year. That compares with a national clearance rate of about 60 percent. Investigative Post and WGRZ found that police are clearing about three-quarters of murders involving robberies, domestic disputes, child abuse and the like.[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Feb 15

2017

Scant oversight of Buffalo police

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It’s a question that has taken on greater urgency in post-Ferguson America: Who polices the police? The answer in Buffalo is no one. The city’s police department is not subject to the type of civilian oversight that takes place in cities such as Rochester, Pittsburgh and, more recently, Chicago. The task of investigating citizen complaints of police misconduct in Buffalo is assigned primarily to the department itself. But its Internal Affairs Division rarely finds officers at fault when it investigates allegations of excessive use of force. Internal Affairs cleared officers of wrongdoing in 58 of the 62 completed investigations into[...]

Posted 7 years ago

Feb 13

2017

Lawyer questions police over deadly encounter

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It’s been six days since Wardel Davis, a 20-year-old African American man, died after an encounter with two Buffalo police officers on the city’s West Side. What little the public has been told has come primarily from the police and an attorney representing the two officers. Another side of the story is emerging in an exclusive interview with the attorney retained by Davis’s family. “There are troubling inconsistencies with the police version of events,” Steven Cohen told Investigative Post. Cohen, a veteran defense and civil rights attorney, said he is troubled by a lack of transparency on the part of police, including[...]

Posted 7 years ago
Investigative Post

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