Buffalo Police Misconduct Data

In the wake of racial justice protests across New York in 2020, lawmakers repealed a subsection of state law called 50-a, which had been used to block the release of police misconduct records for decades. As part of the NYCLU’s statewide 50-a campaign, the NYCLU obtained thousands of records about police misconduct investigations and disciplinary records from the Buffalo Police Department, spanning from 1995 to 2023. The NYCLU was able to identify 934 unique allegations of misconduct during that period, including allegations of excessive force and illegal searches. Our analysis, which will be updated as we receive more documents from the Department, makes it clear the Buffalo Police Department rarely holds officers accountable for misconduct.

Misconduct and Discipline Data

Misconduct allegations are investigated by the Buffalo Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD), which produces a recommendation to the Buffalo police commissioner who ultimately determines whether officers are disciplined and, if so, what discipline they receive. The Buffalo Police Department’s entire disciplinary investigative process is internal, meaning the Department is charged with investigating itself. As is often the case when departments are tasked with policing themselves, the Department substantiates misconduct allegations at very low rates, meaning they rarely determine that misconduct occurred despite thousands of allegations. The reason for the low rates is not that the complaints are largely meritless. Rather, it reflects that the IAD investigations typically fail to gather sufficient evidence to conclude that misconduct took place, leading to “no discipline” results for most allegations. And when misconduct was substantiated, only a fraction triggered serious disciplinary action. Instead, most officers received a slap on the wrist.

Below is a searchable database containing the misconduct and disciplinary history of hundreds of individual Buffalo police officers. It is particularly concerning that, of the 272 officers with at least one disciplinary record, 27 were named in ten or more records.

The NYCLU analysis revealed the following:

• Of the 934 misconduct investigations, only 86 were sustained by the Department after investigation. Most sustained investigations were for minor violations, such as officers involved in traffic accidents or alleged misconduct described in very broad terms like “Conduct” or “Procedures.”
• Of the 86 sustained investigations, only 38 officers were reprimanded. Only 28 were suspended for at least one day and no officers were fired or put on probation.

• Incidents involving reports of serious misconduct are rarely substantiated. Of the 157 incidents that refer to “use-of-force” or “excessive force,” only two were substantiated after investigation. The penalties for these incidents were a one-day suspension for one officer, and a four-day suspension for the other.
• Of the 31 incidents in which an officer reportedly used their weapon, including three cases of off duty domestic violence, only one was substantiated after investigation, which resulted in a four-day suspension.
• The lack of a systematic tracking system for officer complaints and misconduct makes it doubtful that the Department can identify and address possible broad trends, such as racial bias or excessive use of force.

Since misconduct records are limited to active and recently retired officers, most of the disciplinary records reference alleged misconduct that occurred in recent years.

First–hand accounts of police misconduct allegations

The following are particularly concerning allegations of misconduct made against Officer Michael Acquino between 2004 and 2015. The Buffalo Police Department did not substantiate any of the following reports, leading to no disciplinary action.

Where Our Litigation Stands

In April 2021, the NYCLU – along with pro bono counsel from Shearman & Sterling LLP (now A&O Shearman) — filed a lawsuit against the Buffalo Police Department for unlawfully denying the NYCLU’s requests for the full slate of records related to police misconduct authorized to be disclosed after the repeal of 50-a. Following our lawsuit, the Buffalo Police Department agreed to begin producing all officer disciplinary files (including “unsubstantiated”) on a rolling basis for all officers. The NYCLU has obtained thousands of pages to date, including full officer disciplinary files for almost all current officers and files for recently retired officers.

About the Data

The Buffalo Police Department fails to engage in any data tracking or similar analysis. It has also failed to produce any data, database, or data spreadsheet that tracks or collects information about officer complaints and misconduct. Therefore, in order to analyze the records received from the Buffalo Police Department, the NYCLU individually analyzed thousands of records, cross-referenced complaints and reconciled information from the Department’s Disciplinary Cards, Internal Affairs Division (IAD) Memos and Employee History Records.