Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Another Buffalo man was arrested for shooting at officers early Sunday morning, police say he obtained the weapon illegally. This is not the first time in the last couple of months we've seen suspects shooting at police in Buffalo, especially in regards to suspects with prior criminal history.
Related
In addition to the incident Sunday, back in late March, Kente Bell led police on a wild chase all throughout Buffalo and Cheektowaga were he fired a weapon at police while he was driving. At the time of the chase, Bell was on probation for a prior gun charge.
Related
"This is absolutely disgusting behavior. I mean, it's showing the brazenness of criminals nowadays and the fact that there's just not any respect for law enforcement or the job that they're trying to do out there to keep citizens safe," said Jeff Rinaldo, retired Buffalo police captain and a partner of Vista Security Group.
"This dangerous trend continues to show that previously convicted felons have no fear of the criminal justice system, are willing to carry handguns illegally, and are not afraid to use them against members of our community and police officers," said BPD Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.
This trend is not just bound to Buffalo, there were multiple rounds fired at police in Rochester last Thursday, where one officer died and another officer injured. The suspect is said to have an "extensive criminal background,” according to Rochester Police Captain Frank Umbrino.
Related
"Law enforcement has always been a dangerous job. After the issues we saw in 2020, there has definitely been an uptick in assaults on and attempts for use of deadly force against officers and as we tragically just saw here a few days ago in Rochester, two police officers doing their job were ambushed and executed for doing nothing more than the job for which they were hired to do," Rinaldo says.
Does something need to be done about bail reform to prevent those with gun charges for discharging their weapons again? Rinaldo thinks that gun reform plays a serious role in all of these cases.
"I think bail reform has played a very large role in this. They took a problem that existed in the criminal justice system, and that is people that were charged with very low level offenses, who couldn't afford bail were being kept in custody for an ordinate amount of time, and that needed to be fixed," said Rinaldo.
"However, like all things we've seen, this now applied to possession of guns and other violent offenses. That should not have been the intention of bail reform. What bail reform failed to take into consideration is the impact that the victims experience when they are subjected to criminal activity. The victims were forgotten about and now we're seeing criminals commit serious offenses and literally been given a piece of paper and sent on their way, hours later. They are repeating their offenses and it's causing a lot of problems for communities that are trying to effectively fight crime."
Can we reform bail reform to help improve the safety of our officers? Rinaldo thinks we can.
"First and foremost, you have to be able to keep somebody in custody that's committed any level of violent action. You have to allow judges to look at that person, look at their criminal history and make a proper determination on whether or not bail should be set and whether or not this person should be released pending their further court proceedings," Rinaldo said.
"The intention of bail reform was good, I understand what was behind it. But stakeholders were not included in those conversations. Law enforcement was not included in that conversation and I think if you really want to study bail reform and if you want to be able to have reforms in the criminal justice system, you have to include all of the stakeholders in that system."