“Detective Hy was repeatedly discourteous and unprofessional”

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A motorcyclist struck by Buffalo Police Officer Richard Hy in 2021 is suing the Hy, the city and the police department.

The state attorney general over the past four years has investigated 10 Buffalo police officers repeatedly accused of misconduct.

The investigations found “no pattern” of misconduct by six of those officers, and in two other cases the inquiries were dropped because the officers left the force. 

Twice, however, the attorney general’s investigators threw penalty flags.

The latest cop to be scrutinized: Detective Richard Hy, who has been a notorious figure for much of his 13-year career.

“Detective Hy was repeatedly discourteous and unprofessional during encounters with civilians and escalated the encounters, including by using physical force,” Tyler Nims, head of the attorney general’s Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigation Office, wrote in a September report to then-Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.

Hy was guilty of misconduct when he intentionally backed his patrol car into a motorcycle, knocking over the bike and the driver, the attorney general found. 

He was discourteous and used excessive force when, while responding to an armed robbery report, he cursed at a 14-year-old suspect, calling him “fat boy,” then shoved him and pushed him against a patrol car. 

And he violated the department’s professional standards when he berated then-state Supreme Court Judge Mark Grisanti, whose long-running feud with his North Buffalo neighbors had turned into a street brawl.

Hy’s conduct in those encounters “violated the Department’s policies and the Federal and State Constitutions,” Nims wrote to the commissioner.

The department docked Hy 15 vacation days for the incident with the motorcyclist, and he earned a lecture from a superior for being rude to the minor robbery suspect. There was no discipline for the exchange with Grisanti because no one complained, according to the attorney general’s report.

Hy should have received “more significant discipline” for the incident with the motorcyclist, Nims wrote, but it was too late for that. The statute of limitations had expired for all three incidents, which took place in 2020 and 2021. Instead, Nims recommended Hy undergo training “regarding the use of force and de-escalation techniques” and reading Miranda rights to detainees.

Nims ended his report by reminding the commissioner that the department was required by law to tell the attorney general within 90 days what “actions it is taking in connection with these recommendations.”

A police department spokesperson ignored numerous phone calls and emails from Investigative Post seeking to determine if Hy had received the recommended training.

Looking for “patterns of misconduct”

Nims’ office investigates law enforcement officers who rack up five or more misconduct complaints in the course of two years. Each of the 500-plus law enforcement agencies in the state are bound by law to submit to his office the names of cops who meet that threshold.

The office, under state Attorney General Letitia James, was created in June 2020, in response to protests against police misconduct sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis earlier that year.

The five complaints must come from different individuals and stem from different incidents. The attorney general determines if the complaints were justified, if the officer’s behavior constituted a pattern, and if the department’s disciplinary measures were adequate. Nims can recommend additional discipline and training.

The head of the law enforcement agency — in Buffalo, that’s the police commissioner — must report back to state officials whether and how those recommendations have been implemented.

As of December, Nims’ office had received 418 referrals since its creation four years ago, according to the office’s annual report. The completed investigations — 133 of them to date — are published on the attorney general’s website.

New York City police lead the pack with 49 completed investigations. Fourteen of those investigations found patterns of misconduct, 17 found no pattern, and 18 were closed administratively because the cop in question left the job.

Syracuse police generated 35 referrals, second behind the NYPD, with one pattern of misconduct finding and two administrative closures.

Locally, in addition to the 10 Buffalo cops, Nims’ office completed investigations into two Town of Tonawanda officers, Nicholas Lund and Stephen Bentley, but found no pattern of misconduct by either.

“Escalating encounters with civilians”

Hy, a Buffalo cop since 2012, first earned public notoriety and scrutiny from his bosses for his satirical videos posted under the sobriquet “Angry Cop.” In 2016 those videos earned him a 22-day unpaid suspension for violating the department’s social media policy. 

Later that year Hy was arrested by West Seneca police and charged with headbutting a teen-ager while off-duty, an incident that earned him another suspension.

Hy has since engaged in a series of on-camera encounters that drew significant coverage in the news media. 

In June 202o, police body-camera video captured Hy dressing down Grisanti for name-dropping connections in politics and law enforcement while cops were trying to defuse a fight between Grisanti and his neighbors.

Later that year, a bystander took video of Hy punching a mentally disturbed man on Elmwood Avenue, then sitting on him until cops arrived. Hy was off-duty at the time, dressed in his Army Reserve uniform.

In 2021, Hy intentionally backed his patrol car into a motorcycle driven by Curtis Lee Dean while both were stopped at a red light. The incident was captured on body-camera video, as well as by bystanders and security cameras.

According to the attorney general, Hy said he’d tried to pull over a group of motorcyclists “who were revving their engines loudly,” but they drove around him, “running two red lights and crossing the double yellow line” to do so. But Dean said he didn’t follow that pack of riders, instead stopping behind Hy’s patrol car at a red light at the corner of Edward Street and Delaware Avenue. 

That’s when Hy backed into him, according to his lawsuit and the attorney general. Hy in his incident report claimed that Dean was moving forward, trying to drive around his patrol car, when the impact occurred. Hy withdrew that claim when interviewed by the department’s Internal Affairs investigators.

Hy handcuffed Dean and told him he was under arrest for obstructing governmental administration — because, Hy told him, “you’re acting like an asshole.” That charge and several traffic violations were later dropped. An Internal Affairs investigation led to two charges against Hy, one of which was failure to “properly care for and use equipment that was assigned to him.” He was docked 15 vacation days as punishment.

Dean subsequently sued the city, the police department and Hy. A settlement is pending.

Hy was referred to Nims’ office for investigation in February 2022. 

Nims’ report, issued more than two years later, notes the department upheld eight misconduct complaints against Hy between 2015 and 2021. The report found the detective “engaged in a pattern of misconduct of escalating encounters with civilians, including by using physical force, discourtesy, and unprofessional conduct.”

In addition to more training, Nims suggested the department “create a plan for monitoring Detective Hy’s conduct and impose progressive discipline for any future misconduct.”

Hy claimed in 2021 that the department was denying him promotions because they didn’t like his “Angry Cop” videos. Two years ago he was promoted to detective, then to to lieutenant. According to the attorney general’s report, Hy decided to return to being a detective and is currently assigned to D District. He earned $107,447 last year, according to state payroll records.

Other Buffalo cops investigated

Hy is the second Buffalo cop to whom the attorney general ascribed “a pattern of misconduct.”

The other was Davon Ottey, who cursed at and wrongly arrested people, used excessive force, lied about brandishing a knife and sprayed hand sanitizer on a man who used a phone to record police, according to Nims and his investigators. Investigators also found he issued tickets to drivers in an “excessive” and “retaliatory” manner.

Nims recommended the department should review Ottey’s traffic stops and use of force for the next two years.

Nims’ office closed two others cases because the officers left the force before the investigations were complete. 

One of those is Mitchell R. Thomas, who racked up 14 misconduct complaints in his first four years on the job, at least six of which resulted in discipline. 

Thomas was referred to the attorney general for investigation the same month as Hy — February 2022. Eight months later he was arrested by fellow Buffalo cops for leaving a loaded weapon in his car while off duty and meeting friends in the Chippewa district downtown. 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.

He retired on a disability pension in 2023, according to a department spokesperson, leading the attorney general to close its investigation. Last year the city gave Thomas’s company a contract to provide security at the Broadway Market.

The other cop who left the force mid-investigation is Kevin Murphy. The department tried to fire Murphy for dousing a woman in pepper spray and cursing at her during a March 2020 arrest. An arbitrator upheld Murphy’s termination in October 2023, but last August a state judge overturned the arbitrator and ordered the department to reinstate him. He is back on the force.

The attorney general found “no pattern” of misconduct by six Buffalo cops referred for investigation: John Britzzalaro, Justin Tedesco, Jake Giarrano, Patrick Garry, Lawrence Briggs, and Mark Slawek.

In clearing Britzzalaro, the attorney general noted that in one instance the officer searched a vehicle “without sufficient justification.”

As for Briggs, the attorney general found he’d used excessive force in stopping and arresting 54-year-old Verdel Hogues “for the possession of a small amount of marijuana” — an unlit blunt Briggs and his partner saw in the man’s car. After Hogues exited his vehicle, Briggs tackled him to the ground. Hogues, who had repeatedly told the officers he was disabled, “can be heard screaming in pain” on body-camera video, according to the report.

In his incident report, Briggs claimed Hogues threatened him, saying, “I’ll beat your ass.” He later admitted in court proceedings that Hogues had not made any threats.

“Anybody can tell me they’re disabled,” Briggs said, when deposed for a civil lawsuit Hogues brought against the city, the department, Briggs and his partner, Ryan Sanders.  

“Sometimes I feel like you have to use force to take control of a situation. That’s how I just feel.”

An Internal Affairs investigation cleared Briggs and Sanders for the handling of the stop and arrest. The attorney general recommended the department train Briggs on use of force and search and seizure law. The city in 2023 paid Hogues $210,000 to settle the lawsuit.

Geoff Kelly