Tag: law enforcement

Apr 22

2024

State finds fault in Erie County jail death

The Erie County Holding Center. Photo by Garrett Looker. The New York Commission of Correction has faulted medical care in the Erie County Holding Center and ordered the county Legislature to review the 2021 death of an inmate whose cancer went undiagnosed. James Ellis, 58 and locked up for a parole violation, may have died no matter what, the commission found in a March 27 report. But someone should have called a doctor before he was found unresponsive and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Nov. 30, 2021. Ellis lost 15 pounds while incarcerated for nine[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Jan 26

2024

Accused vandal sent for psychiatric help

Published by Garrett Looker

With a deadline looming, a mentally ill man accused of breaking windows at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Buffalo nearly a year ago has been sent to a psychiatric hospital. Jones Woods, 61, arrived at a federal prison psychiatric facility in Massachusetts from a private prison in Ohio on Jan. 16, according to court documents. The transfer came after U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Roemer in December gave prosecutors an ultimatum: Get Woods out of jail and into psychiatric care by Jan. 31 or I’ll dismiss the charges against him. Roemer found Woods incompetent to stand trial last June and[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Jan 3

2024

Deadline looming for alleged rock thrower

Published by Garrett Looker

A federal judge in Buffalo says he’ll dismiss charges against an accused vandal if the Department of Justice doesn’t get him into a psychiatric facility by the end of January. The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Roemer is the latest in a series of decisions from federal judges nationwide who’ve grown impatient with ballooning wait times for defendants deemed mentally incompetent. Instead of receiving treatment in psychiatric hospitals, mentally ill inmates presumed innocent are languishing in jails. Prosecutors have said there isn’t a bed available for Jones Woods, who’s been jailed for nearly a year after being arrested for[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Nov 20

2023

License plate readers target minority neighborhoods

Published by Jim Heaney

Buffalo police have quietly installed license plate readers at 41 intersections in the city, two-thirds of them located in neighborhoods populated predominantly with people of color. Buffalo police, in response to a Freedom of Information Law request for the department’s policies on license plate readers, wrote that they’re used for “law enforcement investigative purposes only.” While it’s unclear how the department now is using readers, police in the past used mobile readers to issue traffic tickets, at considerable profit to the city. Unlike many other cities, neither the police nor Mayor Byron Brown, their commander in chief, have made the[...]

Posted 11 months ago

Nov 15

2023

Finally, answers on sheriff’s helicopter use

Published by Jim Heaney

Since 2018, the Erie County Sheriff’s helicopter has rescued 14 people, according to records released by the sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office has cited rescues to justify buying a new $10 million helicopter. The records don’t indicate if any of the rescues saved people in life-threatening situations, however. Here’s what records released pursuant to a Freedom of Information Law request from Investigative Post show: In 2021, the helicopter picked up two people from atop a grain elevator when one experienced a medical episode related to diabetes after the pair had climbed to the elevator’s roof, according to sheriff’s records and[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Sep 20

2023

Erie County sheriff wants $10 million helicopter

Published by Geoff Kelly

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia wants to double his department’s helicopter fleet with a new chopper that would cost more than $10 million. “It’s a matter of safety,” Undersheriff William Cooley told Investigative Post in justifying a new Airbus H135 helicopter that would take two years to build and outfit. “We see an absolute need for a new machine.” The sheriff’s office boasts that its current helicopter helps nab suspected car thieves and controls traffic at Buffalo Bills games. The department says that its 22-year-old chopper, often grounded for maintenance and repairs, has saved lives. The department once considered replacing[...]

Posted 1 year ago