Categories for DailyPost

Feb 12

2024

Monday Morning Read

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Imagine what it’s like to be imprisoned for years on end. Or, read this compelling essay written by an inmate and published by The Marshall Project. The inmate in question, Jy’aire Smith-Pennick, is serving a 27-year sentence for murder in Pennsylvania. The biggest challenge, he writes, is boredom. In an attempt to disrupt the monotony of prison, we try to create our own personal routines filled with exercise, enrichment programs and constant work. Some of us play cards, watch sports or participate in hobbies such as sewing. But sooner or later, these routines also become monotonous. This is the part[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Feb 9

2024

Labor’s challenges and opportunities

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Watch our panel discussion on organized labor. Video by Garrett Looker. Regardless of who wins the presidential election in November, it will be incumbent on workers and union members to fight for better pay, schedules and working conditions. And that’s to say nothing about addressing the effects of climate change and rectifying social injustices. In other words: The labor movement is going to have to save itself. That was one of the big takeaways from Investigative Post’s panel discussion on the labor movement Wednesday night. President Joe Biden may be better for labor than Donald Trump and the Republicans, the panelists[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Feb 8

2024

Minimal discipline for problem Buffalo cop

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In the space of 10 months, Buffalo police officer Davon Ottey cursed, 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 the New York State Attorney General’s office. Ottey’s conduct between June 2019 and April 2020 prompted five citizen complaints and was sufficient to warrant a criminal investigation, the attorney general’s office wrote in a Dec. 28 letter to Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. For its part, the department sustained two complaints against Ottey, issuing a six-day suspension in one case and a[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Feb 7

2024

Investigative Post sues FBI over records

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Nearly a year after first requesting the records, Investigative Post filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Federal Bureau of Investigations, arguing that the agency is unlawfully withholding thousands of pages of documents. Some of the records are related to the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. which is currently under FBI investigation. The FBI says it has the records, but wants to take more than four years to review and release them. “The information contained in the requested records will allow Investigative Post to bring transparency and accountability to OTB and its public officials in order to protect the public[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Feb 6

2024

Brown angling for top job at OTB

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From left: Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, OTB President and CEO Henry Wojtaszek, OTB board member James Wilmot. Mayor Byron Brown, who has pursued at least two jobs outside City Hall in the past six months, has his eyes set on yet another: president and CEO of the Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp., sources tell Investigative Post. And those political insiders say the job’s current occupant, Henry Wojtaszek, is looking for an exit strategy, too.  It’s little wonder that Brown would be interested in the job. Wojtaszek has one of the best-compensated public service posts in the state. The OTB president[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Feb 5

2024

Monday Morning Read

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If you’re as old as me, you may remember Al Bemiller, a center and guard on the Bills offensive line during the 1964-65 championship years. He played nine seasons for the Bills and was selected to its Silver Anniversary Team in 1984. Bemiller was featured prominently last week in a Washington Post investigation about the NFL’s failure to compensate many retired players suffering from dementia resulting from concussions and other injuries they suffered while playing. When Al Bemiller filed his settlement claim in 2019, his children hoped for a quick approval and money to help with his care. He had[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Feb 2

2024

Unions, lawmakers renew push for IDA reform

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Union officials, lawmakers and good-government groups gathered in Albany this week to announce a renewed push for industrial development agency reform. Photo by Arabella Saunders, New York Focus. A version of this story was first published by New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here. The fight to curb tax breaks issued by industrial development agencies has a powerful new ally: labor unions. Good government groups, legislators, a local development authority board member and their latest allies from the statewide teachers union and the AFL-CIO gathered in Albany Wednesday to urge the[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Feb 1

2024

Accused spitter stuck in legal limbo

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Charged with spitting on guards at a federal detention facility nearly four years ago, Samuel Boima is still locked up. And there’s no end in sight. He’s a schizophrenic with convictions for armed robbery and assault. A final deportation order has been issued, an appeal denied. Sierra Leone, Boima’s native country, has granted travel documents. Federal prosecutors in Buffalo are keeping him in the United States, according to a federal judge who has urged the U.S. attorney’s office to drop charges of assaulting federal officers so deportation proceedings can resume. Boima in May 2020 spat while two guards at the[...]

Posted 12 months ago
Investigative Post