Archives

Dec 16

2022

Podcast: Reporting on 149 Arkansas

Published by

The windows and doors of a West Side house are boarded up, debris scattered throughout the yard. Inside, two individuals have died, their bodies left to decay. The dilapidated house at 149 Arkansas St. has been the source of numerous calls to emergency personnel. Its owners have been hit with multiple housing code violations and thousands of dollars of unpaid summons. Local residents have said the property’s owner, the Buffalo Police Department, and City Hall have skirted accountability. In their stead, the residents of Arkansas Street are left to deal with the property’s effects, including the stench of a decaying[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 14

2022

City Hall and the House from Hell

Published by

The boarded-up house on Arkansas Street stands as a testament to City Hall’s ineptitude in dealing with urban blight. Not one, but two people — suspected drug users — have died inside the abandoned house since Sept. 26. That followed years of housing code violations and frequent complaints from neighbors about drug use and other quality of life issues. A maintenance man alerted police when the first man overdosed, but officers didn’t go inside to check on him, according to neighbors and police reports. That didn’t happen until eight days later, when neighbors called police again because of the stench[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 13

2022

Maybe the feds can fix Buffalo police

Published by

The U.S. Justice Department has investigated more than 80 problem-plagued police departments and correctional facilities over the past 25 years and mandated remedial action to correct issues it encountered in more than half of them. Pittsburgh was the Justice Department’s first target. In 1997, the DOJ and the city signed a “consent decree” — a binding agreement — under which the city adopted numerous police reforms, including an “early warning system” to track officers who exhibited a tendency toward excessive use of force or racial discrimination. A 2012 consent decree between Seattle and the DOJ — prompted by a pattern[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 12

2022

Monday Morning Read

Published by

Treat yourself this holiday season to a free subscription to WeeklyPost, our email newsletter sent Sunday mornings. Below is the “What I’m Reading” portion of the newsletter. Buffalo schools don’t enjoy a good reputation. Many teachers in the trenches resent the tag. Yet they acted last week to further tarnish the district by taking a vote of no confidence in Superintendent Tonja Williams. Not because she’s doing a bad job, mind you. But rather, she won’t settle contract negotiations on their union’s terms. Bad form, people. As former School Board Member Larry Quinn noted in a guest column in The Buffalo News, there’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 8

2022

Lawmakers indicate no review for Bills stadium

Published by

Updated: 5:05 p.m. The Buffalo Bills new stadium is now set to win approval from the Erie County Legislature without completing a full environmental review that’s been required of similar projects around the state. Legislators on Thursday signaled that they would issue a “negative declaration” next week under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, forgoing an Environmental Impact Statement. That would allow the Bills to skip a full environmental assessment.  After more than an hour of testimony and discussion, legislators said they felt comfortable moving forward without an EIS, something that was required for all major league sports venues built[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 5

2022

Vote for iPost’s top story of 2022

Published by

Update: Voting is closed. With apologies to David Letterman, here’s our list – in no particular order – of the Top 10 stories we produced in 2022. Geoff Kelly, our senior reporter, produced three of them: Roswell Park’s connection to a Russian oligarch.  Retired supervisors testify in a federal lawsuit that Buffalo police often use the N word. Link Black officers in another lawsuit contend a police captain went on a racist rant. Link J. Dale Shoemaker, who joined the staff this summer, reported on the huge subsidies Amazon received to locate a warehouse in Niagara County and Erie County’s[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 5

2022

Monday Morning Read

Published by

Subscribe for free to WeeklyPost, our email newsletter delivered Sunday mornings to your inbox. Matt Spina and Charlie Specht followed up on our reporting, and theirs, with a story Sunday that delved into the testimony given by retired police supervisors who were deposed in a federal lawsuit against the city and Buffalo Police Department. It turns out the department improperly destroys records and then Commissioner Dan Derenda set an informal quota for arrests by the Strike Force unit. Ken Kruly’s most recent column on his Politics and Other Stuff website included some startling numbers on gambling in New York State.[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Dec 2

2022

Cop accused of racist rant is suspended

Published by

A Buffalo police captain accused of delivering a racist rant at police headquarters in May has been suspended without pay. Two Buffalo police officers and a mental health specialist filed a lawsuit in federal court on Nov. 21, alleging Captain Amber Beyer — head of the department’s Behavioral Health Team — made a series of offensive remarks in the team’s offices at police headquarters. Among the things she is alleged to have said: Black officers are more likely to be unfaithful to their spouses than white officers. All the male Black officers she knew cheated on their wives. White police[...]

Posted 2 years ago
Investigative Post