Categories for News

Sep 5

2017

Lawsuit alleges Buffalo police misconduct

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A coalition of community activists and attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Buffalo on Tuesday and sent a letter to State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman urging his civil rights division to investigative what they allege is a pattern of unconstitutional practices by the Buffalo Police Department against minority residents. Anjana Malhotra, co-author of the report and complaint, said her research uncovered a “pattern and practice of discriminatory and unconstitutional police practices.” “The fourth amendment guarantees to everyone equally that one has a right to be free of unreasonable seizures,” she said at a press conference Tuesday[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Aug 9

2017

Town to fence landfill with Love Canal legacy

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The Town of Wheatfield has finally picked a contractor to build a fence around a dangerous landfill that once held Love Canal waste and has long been used by residents for recreation. The process took over year and a half since town officials pledged to fence in the landfill.  New York State Fence will construct the fence for $106,800. Senator Robert Ortt secured the town $75,000 to offset some of the cost, in response to a Feb. 10, 2016, Investigative Post story. “It’s been a long haul,” Wheatfield Supervisor Robert Cliffe told the Niagara Gazette after the vote at Monday night’s town[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jul 23

2017

Spree magazine honors iPost reporting staff

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Buffalo’s best print reporters? The team at Investigative Post, according to Buffalo Spree magazine in its “best of” issue that just hit news stands. “Local reporting needs an occasional sharp edge; that edge is getting harder to find in WNY’s traditional media. That’s where Investigative Post steps in,” the magazine declares in its August issue. “The team, lead by former Buffalo News reporter Jim Heaney, produces its intensively researched stories on vital topics for various local outlets, including The Public, Buffalo’s weekly alternative paper. It is the only news organization in the area devoted to watchdog journalism.” Buffalo Spree, the[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jul 12

2017

Dispute over Wheatfield landfill test results

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The Department of Environmental Conservation on Tuesday said a toxic landfill in Wheatfield isn’t leaching chemicals onto nearby properties. But Michael Stag, a New Orleans attorney representing current and former residents in a lawsuit, contends that the state got it wrong. In addition, he warned state authorities more than a month ago that his testing found dangerous levels of chemicals inside homes, not the soil. In December 2015, the DEC deemed the landfill a significant risk to public health. The state designated it a Superfund site after removing 80-dump truck loads of Love Canal waste buried there in 1968. Some residents[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jun 5

2017

iPost reporting cited for excellence

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The New York State Associated Press Association has honored Investigative Post for its reporting on two environmental stories. The AP selected Looking for Lead  (in all the wrong places) as the best investigative television story for midsized markets. The three-story package documented Buffalo’s failure to test for lead in the drinking water of inner-city neighborhoods despite the prevalence of lead poisoning in children who live there.  The story aired in August 2016 and was co-produced with WGRZ. Another story, Decades Later, Love Canal Landfill Still Poses Risk, placed third in the investigative reporting category among midsized radio markets. The story, which[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Jun 1

2017

State lawmaker’s plan to combat lead poisoning

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Lead poisoning in Buffalo is a public health crisis. In fact, Investigative Post reported in November 2014 that the city is “ground zero”  for lead poisoning problems. Even low levels of lead in children’s blood can cause permanent damage, such as learning and developmental disabilities. On Thursday morning, Assemblyman Sean Ryan announced his plan to combat this problem. Ryan cited in the speech Investigative Post’s reporting in proposing a package of state legislation that he said will help prevent exposure to lead in paint and water. His first proposal would amend the state’s definition of elevated blood lead level to match what the federal[...]

Posted 8 years ago

May 23

2017

Heaney discusses homicides on WGRZ

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Jim Heaney tells Kelly Dudzik of WGRZ that Buffalo police have a poor track record of clearing homicides – generally solving a quarter to a third of murders in recent years. Departments nationally clear about 60 percent of homicides. Heaney’s comments were made in the context of plans announced by Common Council President Darius Pridgen to launch a newsletter that will feature murder victims. Pridgen, pastor of True Bethel Baptist Church, hopes the newsletter and a digital companion will help in some way to solve murders. Heaney and Steve Brown of WGRZ did stories in March of this year and[...]

Posted 8 years ago

Apr 6

2017

Woman threatened over lawn signs

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An Amherst woman with a lawn sign that declares “Black Lives Matter” has been threatened by an anonymous letter writer who invoked the name of a right-wing news site. Ivy Yapelli received the letter two weeks ago stating that she had been placed on a “database of homeowners who may be deemed dangerous.” According to the letter writer, the “Black Lives Matter ” and “Resist” signs on Yapelli’s lawn promote “hatred and violence.” “It was clearly an attempt to intimidate me,” Yapelli said. No return address was provided, but the letter was signed, “Truth Revolt, Buffalo, NY Chapter.” The editor of Truth[...]

Posted 8 years ago
Investigative Post