Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The head of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association (PBA) is disputing claims from Mayor Sean Ryan that crime in the city is down.
PBA President John Davidson says if you look at the numbers that City Hall seems to be touting about crime being down, it's over 10-year averages.
"I guess compared to 2016, maybe crime is down. I honestly don't know. I don't look that far back. I look into what's actually going on currently in the city of Buffalo, and shootings are up. Violent crime is up. People are reporting their cars are being stolen. Property damage reports are up. The reality is Buffalo is a more dangerous city than it was a year ago," said Davidson on Tuesday with Joe Beamer on WBEN.
Davidson adds another issue is with staffing, and he points to the holiday weekend.
"You've got two fatal hit-and-run accidents. Then you roll into Friday, and you've got a pretty wild, I guess we're calling them pop-up party now, illegal gathering, criminal activities. What I'd call it. These parties they they result that night in a huge police response to try and break them up, while the police are there trying to intervene and restore some order. Shots ring out. Two people are shot. Chaos ensues, and then it just rolls into a busy weekend full of 9/11 calls, and when that happens, you've got to obviously answer the calls. But you've also got to get out there when officers call for help in other districts and go assist. So we're just kind of running a little short, running a little ragged. All of a sudden, we haven't fully hired four officers in 2026 since the contract expired last year. We've had 50 officers retire. Trying to replace 50 with fours just doesn't work," Davidson said.
He says pop up parties are nothing new.
"The sizes of them and the brazenness have gotten bigger with less and less respect for law enforcement over the last few years. Then you compound those problems socially with our realistic, very specific problems of we don't have enough officers in our department to function properly. And while every single shift is filled with officers, the Buffalo City of Buffalo is never going to run without officers. However, the officers you're getting are often either on overtime, whether they're volunteering or they're volunteering to keep some of their buddies from maybe missing some life events, or they're just flat out being forced. The reality is, the officers that are working a night in and night out, they're becoming taxed to a level where the response times are going to be a little bit slower. The ability to put up with the disrespect-it's going to be that that that fuse gonna be a little shorter, and all of a sudden the whole city of Buffalo starts to feel the the squeeze of there's not enough police in the City of Buffalo," Davidson noted.
He says in 2023, 18 officers retired. In 2024, 18 more retired.
"Last year, we had 47, and this year we're already at 17. So we're one away from the norm already, and the summer's not even officially over. We're seeing officers hit 20 and just leave that," Davidson stated.
John Davidson claims police staffing is also a concern
John Davidson claims police staffing is also a concern
