CW: More than two dozen Buffalo police officers attacked a peaceful group of bicyclists at 6:30 p.m. They kicked some and beat several with clubs and Mag-Lites. They arrested nine of them on the kind of trumped-up felony charges.

According to City misconduct databse, Costello was involved fleet vehicle accident ; 3rd avoidable accident

Outcome

suspended 2 days without pay , removal of 16.5 hrs from comp bank

According to RPD Misconduct Database, Coniglio was involved in an avoidable fleet vehicle accident.

Outcome

letter of reprimand

(Third) Avoidable car accident

Outcome

Reprimand

According to court documents, RPD officer DiVincenzo used profane language against and then physically slapped an individual while he was handcuffed and being identified at the Police Records counter. The incident was reported by a civilian employee on 01-11-2001.

Outcome

John DiVincenzo pleaded guilty to inappropriate use of force and failing to properly report the event. The officer was sentenced to 5 days suspension without pay and remedial training.

RPD Officer (now Lieutenant) David Gebhardt shot and killed an unarmed Jamaican father of three young children as he was sitting on a couch. According to D&C, "Gebhardt said he tripped or stumbled and his shotgun accidentally discharged".

Outcome

Gebhardt was cleared of all wrongdoing by the Civilian Review Board.

Use of improper tactics according to City of Rochester RPD Misconduct database.

Outcome

suspension

According to the City of Rochester RPD Misconduct database, Officer Elwood used force while taking person into custody, failed to report the incident.

Outcome

suspended

avoidable fleet vehicle accident (3rd incident of avoidable fleet vehicle accident

Outcome

Reprimand

According to the city misconduct database, Costello was involved in a fender bender: he backed into a garbage can, and it was avoidable.

Outcome

reprimanded because violated Rules and Reg Section 4.18 Departmental Property and Equipment

According to a complaint associated with city's disciplinary record, victim was allegedly cap-stunned, and punched and kicked while handcuffed on the ground

In a car chase, Hill allegedly pursued a civilian and shot the civilian in the shoulder.

Outcome

The civilian was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison and released in 2015

Accoriding to the City RPD misconduct database, officer fabricated information regarding a warrant and asked victim to lift her shirt to see if she had a tattoo like the person who was supposedly in the database with a warrant that matched the victims description. He also made several inappropriate comments and drove her home in his vehicle.

Outcome

Letter of reprimand on file after investigation

Individual filed complaint that after being chased by police, he was hit, kicked, and punched by officers including officers Mario Correia, Yodice, and Sofia. CRB and RPD sustained complaint that Correia struck the individual in the head with flashlight and lied about it.

Outcome

Other officers testified that Correia hit individual with the flashlight, Correia denied it. Disciplinary letter states his untruthfulness and violation of procedure could have resulted in termination but he's being given "a second chance", and 60 days unpaid leave. Correia appealed and lost.

According to the City RPD misconduct database, Officer Correia pulled out personal firearm while off duty and threatened an individual with it after he thought the individual had pulled the hair of another female. He continued to wave the firearm around and make claims that the individual was all done now and he could end him now.

Outcome

5 day suspension without pay, report filed with professional standards section

Derold Jamison, an 18 year old high school student, was sitting in a friend's car on Fougeron Street when a car with three white Buffalo Police Officers in plain clothes pulled up next to him. They shined a flashlight in the car and told him to put his hands where they could see them.

The officers told Jamison to get out of the vehicle. He was searched, asked what he was doing there, handcuffed and told to "get down on my knees." Once on his knees, he was hit on the side of his face with a flashlight.

At that point, Jamison's friend came out of the alley, saw what was happening to his friend, and took off running with two officers in pursuit, leaving one officer with Jamison.

The officer that stayed behind put Jamison in the back seat of his friend's car, and the officer got in the front seat behind the wheel. Jamison informed the officer that the back door that he was sitting next to was still open. The officer ignored him. The officer then started the car and pulled away from the curb, making a sharp left turn causing him, with his hands still handcuffed behind his back, to fall out of the car and onto the street.

As Jamison lay in the street, the officer put the car in reverse and attempted to run him over. Jamison ran out of the way and into a nearby yard. The officer then caught up with him and began to beat him again. The officer then pulled his gun out and placed it next to Jamison's head and said, "I would blow your brains out but it's too close to Christmas." With the gun still next to Jamison's head, the officer fired a shot into the ground, and then continued beating him again with his flashlight.

When the sound of the shooting started to draw attention, the officer brought Jamison back to the car until another witness noticed. Throughout the assault, the officer referred to Jamison using racial slurs.

Shortly after, the other officers returned and put Jamison in the car where the beating and name calling continued, forcing him to tell them where his friend lived. On arrival at his friend's house the officers had a short conversation with the friend and released him in his mother's presence. At this point Jamison was also released, and the officer who had assaulted him wiped the blood from his face and said, "Merry Christmas."

All three officers then drove away.

After notifying his father, Derold Jamison. Sr, they went to police headquarters and reported the incident to Internal Affairs. According to Mr. Jamison, Sr.. members of Internal Affairs later identified the officers as detectives Thomas McDonald, Gerald Skinner and Mark Lauber of the Streets Crime Unit.

October 7th, 1992 Buffalo Police Officer Richard C Lopez approached the vehicle of Gregory Johnson, a 23 year old Black man, with his gun drawn. Lopez discharged his gun into Johnson's skull. Johnson died a short time later.

Outcome

The police claimed the lynching was accidental, and on April 7 1993 a grand jury cleared Lopez.

On January 2, 1992 Frank A Nelson, a Black man, was arrested on the same charge for which he had been released approximately 6 hours earlier. Upon his arrival at 40 Delaware Avenue, he was bailed out and released. He was told to pick up his property at 74 Franklin Street. A woman desk officer told him after asking him if he was Frank Nelson, that he had to pick up his property in a back room which she directed him to. On entering the room he spent the next three hours being beaten while handcuffed.

The officers took turns beating up Nelson, and bragged about being able to make him bark like a dog as they punched and kicked him to the floor.

He told them that they made a mistake and that he was released from across the street but they said he thought he was "tough." They moved toward him, calling him racial slurs, and continued to beat him. He attempted to make a break for the door which was slammed shut but was placed in a head-lock, and thrown to the floor on his stomach.

While lying in his hospital bed with a spinal injury, unable to move his legs, Nelson gave an account of how he was beaten with sticks, kicked, choked, and stomped, while handcuffed behind his back, lying on his stomach:

"A white shirt walked in, I looked him right in the face.

'Cover his face, I don't want him to see me. You know what to do,' he screamed.

A cloth was placed over my face. I could feel the barrel of a gun being pushed into my eyeballs;

'Do you like that, n****r?’

At one point, one of them stood on my back and pulled my handcuffed arms up to my head," recounted Nelson.

"They said they were going to kill me like they did somebody named King; I don't remember the first name, but I had no reason to doubt them."

Still handcuffed, Nelson was dragged to an elevator where he was kicked in the throat.

"I tried to get up so they would not kick me in the throat, that's when I realized I couldn't feel my legs."

When the Pre-Trial Services people arrived at about 8:30 a.m., Nelson was lying on the concrete floor in a pool of blood, still handcuffed behind his back, unable to move.

"When I saw the White man. I knew they were back to kill me, but when he identified himself from Pre-Trial, I begged him not to leave me. When he got a closer look, he said, ‘Oh my God.’ He called an ambulance and stayed with me."

Mr. Nelson recalled with tears streaming down his disfigured face, "I owe him my life.”

Because the police have threatened to arrest him in the hospital, unless he signed papers, Nelson said he fears for his life. At one point because of police presence, the hospital had to call headquarters to find out if Nelson was under arrest so that they could move him to the hospital lock-up if such was the case. No one seemed to know if he was under arrest.

Franklin Pratcher, attorney for the family, said that members of the National Bar Association and private sector got together and intended to start bringing cases against this type of brutality.

"Some officers are frustrated with so much crime on the street but others are just prejudiced. They do not see Black people as human beings and don't treat us the same as White people." He went on to say that the big problem is the lack of community out-cry as well as a lack of outrage from the legal community itself.

Frank Nelson was the friend who took in Yolanda Mitchell, who was paralyzed in the July 1992 shooting on Carlton St. in the Children’s Park. He was her sole helper. While still in a wheelchair, she was largely unable to do for herself. Following the beating by Buffalo police, Mr. Nelson occupied a room on the same floor facing the same fate.

Shortly after 10 PM on the night of December 5th, 1991 Detective Mark Lauber of the Buffalo Police Department shot Paul Mills, a 19 year old Black student of Erie County Community College, as he ran away from the detective. Paul was the second youngest of Bobby and Ann Mills' four children.

Mills was shot by the detective while he was in plain clothes with the departments destructive 9-millimeter gun under the left arm. The bullet traveled downward, damaging his lungs, liver and spleen before exiting his right side just above the hip. Based on the entrance of the bullet, it's reasonable to assume Mills had his left arm up when he was shot.

According to police account, Mills allegedly pulled a gun on the detective prior to fleeing. Mills proceeded to run away from police through a yard on Cambridge Ave fearing for his life and collapsed in the front yard of a residence on Cornwall Ave. A search of the area that night, by police, failed to turn up any weapon. However, police alleged that approximately 24hrs later, a gun was found on the roof of a shed in the rear of the Cambridge Ave yard. The Buffalo Police Commissioner did not say if fingerprints were found on the gun.

A Buffalo resident said that Mills laid on Cornwall after collapsing for nearly 20 minutes before he was picked up by an ambulance and transported to Erie County Medical Center. The witness said, "He lost a lot of blood, you could see it now if not for the snow."

An unnamed police officer said that, "Lauber is one of the good Irish Catholic boys from South Buffalo, and Dillon(the DA at the time) is not going to hurt him."

Thomas Grillo, a retired Buffalo police officer, was arrested for attacking a man with a tire iron and threatening to shoot him with a loaded revolver during an apparent traffic dispute. Grillo was accused of smashing the window of the driver's car with a tire iron and hitting the driver. He was also accused of pointing a loaded .38-caliber revolver at the driver's head.

Outcome

Grillo was charged with assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, possession of a weapon and criminal mischief.