Incident

Incident Description

Officer Kevin Murphy arrested Lakisha Neal, 42, on March 25, 2020. Body camera footage shows Murphy grabbing Neal, cursing and twice spraying her with pepper spray while other officers do nothing to intervene other than telling Neal to cooperate.

“Get in the car or get sprayed!” Murphy demands after grabbing Neal by the arm and forcing her to a patrol car. Murphy deploys pepper spray after Neal says she’s pregnant.

“Will y’all listen to me?” Neal asked seconds before Murphy sprayed her. As tears from the first spraying run down Neal’s face, Murphy sprayed again after Neal tells him that she can’t breathe.

Neal was arrested and charged with making a false report, obstruction, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.

Outcome

All charges against Neal were dismissed.

Former Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood fired Murphy.

An arbitrator upheld the Buffalo Police Department's firing of Murphy for excessive force and falsely stating that Neal had admitted telling a dispatcher that a gun was at the address. The arbitrator found that Murphy knew that Neal didn’t have a gun and that he’d failed to use de-escalation techniques.

However, the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association asked the arbitrator to overturn the decision reached after Murphy collected more than $276,000 in salary from the city while his disciplinary case was pending. Erie County Supreme Court documents dating to 2013 show no other cases of either the city or the police union asking a judge to reverse an arbitrator’s decision on whether an officer should be fired.

The union during arbitration proceedings argued that Murphy didn't use excessive force and did not deserve termination. The union maintained, Officers aren’t prohibited from handcuffing or deploying pepper spray on pregnant women and Murphy testified that women seeking leniency sometimes lie about being pregnant, according to arbitration records filed by the union in the lawsuit.

Supreme Court Judge Amy Martoche threw out the arbitrator’s decision upholding the termination of a Buffalo Police Officer Kevin Murphy fired. Judge Martoche ruled in her August 20, 2024 decision that arbitrator Jeffrey Selchick improperly failed to consider testimony from three witnesses, including Officer Allan May, who teaches use of force techniques at the department’s training academy, retired Lt. Michael Alberti, who worked in internal affairs, and former Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood.

Lockwood during an arbitration proceeding claimed that Neal’s verbal resistance to Murphy justified the officer physically removing her from a porch, union lawyer Rodney Personius wrote in a brief urging Martoche to overturn the arbitrator’s decision that upheld the firing. Lockwood also acknowledged that Neal continued resisting Murphy, even after she was pepper-sprayed, Personius wrote.

The city could put Murphy back on the force or, alternatively, ask the Fourth Appellate Division to overturn Martoche’s decision, or attempt to hold a new arbitration proceeding on the same issues.