Categories for In-Depth

Jun 5

2020

Scant proof of “outside agitators”

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Politicians and police have been raising the spectre of “outside agitators” since the day protests began in Buffalo. For the most part, local media has amplified the message: Outsiders are slipping into town to incite violence and destruction.  But arrest records suggest that narrative is not true. And officials allow that much of the intelligence underlying the claim consists of posts on social media, not known as a reliable source of accurate information. There are other sources, authorities say, but they are unwilling to discuss them. And so the phrase — freighted with bigotry, according to UB professor Henry Louis[...]

Posted 5 years ago

May 21

2020

COVID-19 cited in spike of opioid overdoses

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Update: 3:15 p.m. There’s yet another consequence to the COVID-19 pandemic: More opioid users are dying of overdoses. Health authorities report that opioid use has not increased locally, but because of social isolation, more people are using alone, making it less likely someone is around to help them in the event they overdose.  Eighty-five people died in Erie County from presumed overdoses through the first four months of the year. That’s up from 48 during the same period last year and 64 in 2018. “They’re alone and we’re finding people too late,” said Cheryll Moore, director of the Erie County[...]

Posted 5 years ago

May 14

2020

Buffalo comptroller critical of Brown budget

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The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the city’s fragile finances. But it hasn’t changed the Brown administration’s proclivity for budgets constructed on risky revenue assumptions and optimistic expense projections, according to a report issued Tuesday by the city comptroller’s office. In her report, Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams expressed “substantial concerns” about the 2020-21 budget proposals Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown released May 1. The charter-mandated response to Brown’s budget identified a host of what Miller-Williams characterized as risky assumptions, including more than $80 million in uncertain revenues and nearly $15 million in expense savings that might not materialize. Brown’s budget relies heavily[...]

Posted 5 years ago

May 9

2020

Faulty logic behind refusal to release inmates

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Updated at 10:40 a.m. The argument prosecutors, and sometimes judges, make is that few inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, so it’s safe to keep them incarcerated. Authorities, however, are not testing many inmates, so they don’t know how healthy they really are. As a result, relatively few prisoners held in Erie County jails or the state’s 53 prisons who are deemed as infectious risks are being released. Only five of Erie County’s 528 inmates have been tested, and only 52 have been released due to COVID-19 concerns.  “The standard line from the DA’s office is that ‘We don’t have[...]

Posted 5 years ago

May 6

2020

OTB lands $3.2M intended for small business

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The Western Regional Off Track Betting Corp. is not to be mistaken for a small business. It’s a state-created public benefit corporation, owned by 15 counties and two cities, and charged with running legalized betting operations in western and central New York. It shares its profits with those local governments and the State of New York. Its employees, starting with its well compensated CEO, Henry Wojtaszek, are treated as public-sector employees, drawing, for example, a pension from the state.  And OTB reported some $3.1 million in cash reserves in its last audited financial statements. Nevertheless, OTB has managed to obtain[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Apr 28

2020

ICE’s ill treatment of released detainees

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Updated: 8:10 p.m. The Citgo off the Batavia exit of the Thruway is a typical gas station: a convenience store with 10 gas pumps. It doubles as a Greyhound bus stop. It’s also the drop-off point for people just released from the nearby detention center managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Matt Thompson has seen it happen over and over since he started working at the station four months ago. “The way they treat them, I don’t agree with,” the 20-year Army veteran told Investigative Post. “They drop them off and they treat them like animals. They kick[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Apr 21

2020

Infections spike among immigrant detainees

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Large numbers of detained immigrants and state inmates in Western New York facilities are starting to test positive for COVID-19. Infections have mushroomed from 13 on Friday to 46 on Tuesday among immigrant detainees at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia. That’s more positive test results than at any of the 25 detention facilities operated nationwide by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Twenty-three inmates have tested positive at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden. Eleven of the 23 people have recovered, according to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Only two other state prisons — Sing Sing[...]

Posted 5 years ago

Apr 19

2020

Delayed Wi-Fi project shortchanges students

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It’s a problem that was meant to have been solved months ago, at least for two impoverished Buffalo neighborhoods. Lack of reliable internet access in low-income households puts thousands of Buffalo public school students at an educational disadvantage. So last summer the school district hired a local IT company with a troubling track record to provide free, fast Wi-Fi to approximately 5,500 students on the city’s East and West Sides. The “Connected Communities” project was scheduled for completion by January. That’s two months before the COVID-19 shutdown made home internet access a critical issue for students and teachers trying to[...]

Posted 5 years ago
Investigative Post