42 Search Results for police cars

Jun 11

2020

Buffalo’s police watchdogs are toothless

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The City of Buffalo has three separate police oversight boards, but they’ve done little, if anything, to bring bad cops to heel.  One can’t. It’s an advisory panel with no power beyond its voice.  One won’t. It’s a subcommittee of the Common Council that seldom meets and does not investigate police misconduct.  And the third, a commission mandated by the city’s charter and controlled by Mayor Byron Brown, is hopelessly compromised. Of the three, the Police Advisory Board has the least power. But it has advanced far more substantial ideas about how to change policing in Buffalo than the tepid[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Feb 18

2020

More Buffalo cop cars on the way

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The Buffalo Common Council today approved two measures that will bring 51 new patrol cars to the city’s decrepit fleet. The Council, without comment or debate, approved a contract to lease 31 new police cars from Enterprise Fleet Management for roughly the cost of purchasing 13 cars outright. The Council also approved borrowing $1 million to purchase 20 new police cars. The cost to the city in the first year of the three-year lease period is $675,000 — about what the city appropriated for the purchase of police cars in the current budget.  In the second and third years, the cost[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jan 14

2020

Buffalo cops still waiting on patrol cars

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Investigative Post reported in August that the Buffalo Police Department was woefully short of working patrol cars. The city’s failure to purchase new cars regularly, deferred maintenance and inadequate staffing at the department’s garage had led to a situation the Police Benevolent Association president John Evans described as “dire.” Among the resulting problems: officers without access to vehicles to respond to 911 calls in a timely fashion. Almost six months later, Buffalo’s patrol officers are still waiting for relief. On Tuesday, members of the Common Council’s Police Oversight Committee learned the arrival of new cars is still many months away.[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Nov 19

2019

New cop cars fall short of need

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 The Brown administration is touting its plan to purchase new police cars to replenish its depleted fleet, but the move leaves the police department short on vehicles. Thirty-five new cars are in the pipeline. But it could be up to a year before they’re all on the road, and their number falls short of the 50 to 60 new vehicles needed annually to keep the fleet in good order. John Evans, president of the Police Benevolent Association, recently sent a letter to the Common Council complaining that officers directing traffic at the events downtown do so without patrol cars[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 28

2019

Kelly discusses cop cars on WBFO

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Geoff Kelly has recently reported on a shortage of working police cars in Buffalo (here and here). He discussed his findings this week on WBFO’s Press Pass.  

Posted 5 years ago

Aug 15

2019

Buffalo police handcuffed by ramshackle fleet

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On any given shift, Buffalo police have just half the patrol cars they need to do the job. “I would describe [the situation] as dire,” John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, told Investigative Post. “There aren’t enough cars for the patrol officers to patrol the streets and get to the calls.” The cause: The Brown administration has not replaced police vehicles as frequently as the police department would like and national standards advise. As a result, the police fleet is aging and in disrepair. The cars that do work are driven into the ground, while those in[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Feb 13

2018

Training, equipment deficient in police drowning

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The rapid-moving and debris-filled water of the Niagara River was unfamiliar territory to Officer Craig Lehner. His previous dives were in relatively calm and contained waters like the Buffalo River and the clear, warm Caribbean where he got his scuba certification. Last October, Lehner was training with the Buffalo Police’s Underwater Recovery Team in the Niagara River, the first time the team had trained there in over a year. While the team’s commander, Detective Leo McGrath, has more than thirty years of diving experience, he is not certified to teach public safety diving. Underwater, Lehner lacked the equipment to verbally[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Sep 20

2023

Erie County sheriff wants $10 million helicopter

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Erie County Sheriff John Garcia wants to double his department’s helicopter fleet with a new chopper that would cost more than $10 million. “It’s a matter of safety,” Undersheriff William Cooley told Investigative Post in justifying a new Airbus H135 helicopter that would take two years to build and outfit. “We see an absolute need for a new machine.” The sheriff’s office boasts that its current helicopter helps nab suspected car thieves and controls traffic at Buffalo Bills games.  The department says that its 22-year-old chopper, often grounded for maintenance and repairs, has saved lives. The department once considered replacing[...]

Posted 6 months ago