Jul 25
2024
A questionable city contract
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The Broadway Market. Photo by Garrett Looker.
Buffalo’s Department of Public Works this week asked city legislators to give a contract to a security company helmed by a former city cop whose brief career was rife with complaints of misbehavior, on and off duty.
Elite Protection & Investigation, with offices in Williamsville, won the contract to provide security at the Broadway Market with a bid of $267,150. Two other bidders bid about $20,000 higher. It’s a one-year contract with the option to extend the deal annually up to four times.
Elite’s CEO, Mitchell R. Thomas, began his career with the Buffalo Police Department in November 2016 and left the force in October 2023.
In his first four years on the job, Internal Affairs investigated 14 misconduct complaints lodged against Thomas. Two of those investigations, including one harassment charge, resulted in reprimands. Four more — harassment, absent without leave, rudeness on duty, misconduct off duty — led to disciplinary conferences with his supervisors.
At least three charges were ruled “not sustained,” meaning there wasn’t enough evidence to determine if the charges were true or false.
He was exonerated three times, including in a December 2019 incident in which he and his brother — also a Buffalo cop, also named Mitchell — shot a man running from the scene of a traffic stop.
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In 2018, Thomas was accused of using his authority as a police officer to intimidate a man with whom his sister had a child. The parents were engaged in a custody dispute. Internal Affairs found the complaint credible — the allegation was ruled “sustained” — and Thomas was sent to Deputy Commissioner Barbara Lark for a disciplinary conference according to the case file.
Thomas was charged in 2020 with “wearing unapproved headwear, to wit, a yellow du-rag” in violation of the department’s dress code when responding to a domestic abuse call, according to Internal Affairs files.
But it wasn’t just the dress code violation that drew scrutiny: His slurred speech led the woman who called the cops to infer he was drunk or stoned, a charge Thomas denied. His partner and supervising lieutenant backed up Thomas on his sobriety, according to the Internal Affairs case file. They also claimed they hadn’t seen him wearing the “yellow du-rag,” though the Internal Affairs investigator wrote that “video footage from E District station house camera” showed Thomas wearing the unsanctioned headwear.
Thomas made headlines after he was arrested in October 2022 by fellow Buffalo cops for leaving a loaded weapon in his car while off duty and meeting friends in the Chippewa district. He was suspended from duty and arraigned on a misdemeanor charge — “failure to safely store firearms in the first degree” — in February 2023. He pled guilty to a lesser charge and forfeited the gun.
By then police brass had tired of Thomas’s behavior.
Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia in February 2022 asked the state attorney general’s office to determine whether Thomas’s record comprised “a pattern or practice of misconduct.” Two sources familiar with Thomas’s record told Investigative Post the request amounted to an effort to fire him.
The attorney general last December informed Gramaglia by letter that it had closed its inquiry, “based on the understanding that he is no longer employed by your agency.” A police department spokesperson told Investigative Post via email that Thomas was granted a state-approved duty disability retirement on Aug. 27 of last year. The spokesperson didn’t say what the disability was.
As of Tuesday of this week, Thomas’s biography on Elite’s website suggested he was still a cop:
By Wednesday afternoon — after a version of this story was reported in Investigative Post’s weekly Political Post newsletter — Thomas’s biography had been removed from the company’s website.
Current city payroll records confirm only his brother — the other Mitchell — is still collecting a department paycheck. Their father, yet another Mitchell, was a Buffalo police lieutenant. He retired in 2020 and is collecting a pension, according to state payroll records.
A search of state databases revealed no security guard or private investigator licenses issued to Thomas or to Elite Protection & Investigation. One of Thomas’s partners, Buffalo Police Lt. Brad Pitts, has a security guard license. An Elite employee told Investigative Post a company principal would call back to answer questions, but nobody ever did.
DPW Commissioner Nate Marton likewise did not respond to an inquiry regarding the contract award. The Broadway Market — 90,000 square feet of retail space with attached parking for 1,000 cars — is owned and maintained by the city.
