Tag: Police

Jul 24

2020

Judge bars release of cop disciplinary records

Published by

Updated: 9:21 p.m. A state Supreme Court judge has at least temporarily blocked the release of most disciplinary records of Buffalo police officers.  Judge Frank A. Sedita III, responding to a complaint from the Police Benevolent Association and Buffalo Professional Firefighters Association, issued a show cause order Friday afternoon that prohibits the release of most disciplinary records until a hearing scheduled for Aug. 26. The police department has received several dozen requests under the Freedom of Information Law for disciplinary records since the state repealed 50-a, a state law that shielded from public disclosure the personnel and disciplinary records of[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 22

2020

Details emerge of police disciplinary records

Published by

Investigative Post has been combing through the documents it received earlier this week from the Buffalo Police Department that starts to paint a picture of officers most frequently investigated by Internal Affairs for inappropriate behavior. We’re seeking additional records to provide a more complete picture, but here is what we’ve ascertained so far: Seventeen of the 29 officers named in the documents live outside the city, many of them in West Seneca. Seventy-nine percent are white, vs. 67 percent of the department as a whole. This, in a city that is 56 percent minority. Their average pay is $100,200, slightly[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 20

2020

Police misconduct costing Buffalo millions

Published by

 A cop shooting and paralyzing a teenage driver.  A police tow truck driver running a red light and slamming into a passenger car. A cell block attendant ramming a handcuffed detainee’s face into a door at Central Booking. The incidents all led to lawsuits against the City of Buffalo and its police department, and subsequently settlement agreements. Since 2015, a total of 16 settlements have cost taxpayers $11.9 million. Most involve excessive use of force or negligent driving. Those figures trouble Samuel Davis, a local defense attorney.  “I find it alarming that that much money has been paid out,”[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 20

2020

Buffalo police release disciplinary records

Published by

 The disciplinary records of police officers across the state have been a well-guarded secret until last month, when the state Legislature and governor changed the law to make them public. Some of those records involving Buffalo police are now being disclosed, including 50 pages released Monday to media outlets including Investigative Post after we filed a request used the Freedom of Information Law. The records involve the disciplinary records of officers who have been investigated most often by the department’s Internal Affairs unit in the past five years. Buffalo police released information on the 10 percent of officers who received[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 20

2020

The roots, and consequences, of WNY’s racism

Published by

Note: This column originally appeared in Buffalo Spree. Our nation has a lot of work ahead of it if it is to address the structural racism laid bare by COVID-19, the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed. Buffalo and Western New York have an even heavier lift. Much of the initial focus has been on reform of the Buffalo Police Department, and that’s certainly a good place to start. But the region’s problems run deeper – much deeper. They begin with segregation, which, going back generations, has advantaged whites at the expense of blacks in any number[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 13

2020

Former Bills great recalls beating by police

Published by

On a cold winter night in 1987, Booker Edgerson was driving down Bailey Avenue, just a few blocks from where he then lived on Buffalo’s East Side. Suddenly, a flash in his rearview mirror: a police car signaling him to pull over. So he pulled into a parking lot — a “mistake,” he later called it, “because it’s dark up in there.” Within a few minutes, he was on the ground, surrounded by several cops, nightsticks raised. “They beat the shit out of me,” he said. It was a familiar experience for a black man in America. But the fact[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 8

2020

Heaney discusses suspended cop on WBEN

Published by

Lt. Michael DeLong has been investigated 36 times by the Internal Affairs unit of the Buffalo Police Department and suspended four times. His recent vile outburst directed at a woman recording him on her cell phone makes five. Jim Heaney discusses with NewsRadio 930 WBEN.

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post

Get our newsletters delivered to your inbox * indicates required

Newsletters *