Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - In the days following a fatal shooting in the area of W Chippewa Street and Pearl Street, public safety continues to be a point of emphasis for local officials and business owners in the Chippewa Entertainment District.
An investigation continues by Buffalo police into an early morning shooting at around 2:21 a.m. on Saturday that killed a 19-year-old and injured another 19-year-old.
One victim, Jomarion Ryles of Buffalo, was pronounced deceased at the scene after suffering a gunshot wound to the head. Meanwhile, the second victim suffered a gunshot wound to the chest, and was transported to Erie County Medical Center, where they were last listed in stable condition.
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From the intelligence Fillmore District Councilman Mitch Nowakowski has gotten, the two individuals were not patrons of any establishments on Chippewa the night of the shooting.
Since the shooting, Nowakowski has been in contact with B District police, who already have a Chippewa detail out there, and will be extending the detail further down Chippewa and past Pearl Street.
"A lot of this comes down to a lot of communication, where there will be highlighted law enforcement to make sure that our entertainment district is safe," said Nowakowski in an interview with WBEN. "Thriving cities all around the world and the country have entertainment districts, where people could come and patron and enjoy the city, and enjoy nightlife and enjoy a multitude of restaurants and establishments. So I'm working really hard to make sure we have a safe Chippewa District."
Nowakowski strongly feels this incident is a big societal problem, and people need to look within themselves as human beings and see the environments being created where individuals, especially of this young nature, can commit heinous crimes and ending someone's life.
"Overall, when it comes to the safety of Chippewa, I've been working with B District Police and the establishments on the street to see what environmental factors we can control that will prohibit any dangerous conditions, but especially when it comes to those that are under 21 who are really creating a lot of problems down there," Nowakowski said.
Chris Ring of Rec Room, and president of the Chippewa Alliance was relieved to learn that this incident was a targeted incident, and nothing like in the past with patrons causing issues in a business that bleeds out into the streets. However, this incident is another prime example of why the safety of guests and those working in the Chippewa District is paramount.
"You want to make sure everybody's safe, because you never know the severity of what happened," said Ring with WBEN.
"At the end of the day, we need to figure out a way to curb this, make sure this doesn't happen again. I think that's where, basically, the concern came from. Obviously the next day, once it hit the news, a bunch of the residents that live downtown... reached out to the Alliance, asking if we knew what future plans might be in the district for some additional safety measures, as well as the business owners and stakeholders that have leases downtown that they can't get out of, and hundreds of employees that depend on this income, and what the plan is."
Ring and others with the Chippewa Alliance, as well as those in city government have taken strides toward making the Chippewa District a destination for locals and out-of-towners. This past weekend was quite an active one with Halloween taking place, and others being in town for Sunday's Bills-Chiefs matchup.
"We can't always control what happens in the surrounding areas of Chippewa, surrounding neighborhoods, but we feel if there was more of a visual security measure, whether it's access points to check people getting onto the street, they're getting patted down or walking through metal detectors like you do with Sabres games, Bills games, at the airport, just those little things might be the deterrence enough for the people that are involved in scenarios like this, don't feel comfortable coming down to this district, which, again, ruins it for everybody else. That's the kind of step forward we're looking for, is some additional restrictive measures that allows us to bring private security down to the street, allows us to tell patrons, 'If you don't go into a bar or restaurant, unfortunately, you can't just hang out. This isn't a public sidewalk anymore, this is more of a private entertainment corridor,'" Ring said. "And I think by supplementing 12, 15, 20 private security guards with the police detail we have and having these access points, I think for the adults that are leaving a Shea's show and want to have a glass of wine, or a staycation and walk back to their hotel will feel a little bit more comfortable knowing as they enter this district, the other people that are in there have been checked and are of age, there's no weapons, there's no issues, and it's just more of a controlled entertainment district."
Nowakowski is also working to make sure the Chippewa District doesn't fall back into the Red Light District it was in the '70s, '80s and '90s.
"The fact is there's establishments that are stepping up, City Hall is stepping up, B District is stepping up, because we deserve, as a city, to have safe entertainment districts where people can patron," Nowakowski said. "Oftentimes, we believe and we make the correlation where night life leads to violence, but it shouldn't be that way. ... The whole thing is a huge social problem that's horrifying, and it's going to take every one of us to step up and handle, because we can't just put this on everybody else to figure out."
Back in May, members of the Chippewa Alliance were joined by Nowakowski, Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon and leaders with the Buffalo Police Department to announce a collaborative public safety initiative aimed at improving the safety and experience for those in Buffalo’s Chippewa Entertainment District.
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One part of that initiative Ring felt worked extremely well was eliminating vehicular traffic from coming down Chippewa on the weekends.
"Chippewa is not a connecting street to a major throughway system. Obviously with the lack of people working downtown, you don't have people driving down Chippewa to get to work every day. So closing it off on the busy weekends was kind of a no brainer," Ring said. "You do have thousands of people coming down to the bars at those late hours. And whether it's Uber drivers stopping in the middle of the road, waiting for patrons, creating traffic jams; obviously in the summer months, we see a lot of the people with dirt bikes, motorcycles, ATVs kind of speeding around town, eliminating that access just to increase the safety of the patrons that were coming downtown. We don't want to see somebody getting hit by a car. We don't want to see this congestion. That was like an easy way to, at least, control those situations."
While that one issue appears to be addressed with the safety initiative, he feels another significant issue that has to be further looked into is people loitering around the businesses.
"They have no intention of going into any of the bars or restaurants. They're bringing open containers, which at the end of the day, that's an appearance ticket when an officer gives that to them. There's just no real repercussions, and we're aware of that," Ring noted. "We feel like the police are kind of handcuffed on being able to do their job. That's where we want to help them and bring them some additional security measures to say, 'Hey, listen, you guys can take care of the major stuff, but if we can throw in some additional private security to ask patrons to keep it moving or going to a bar restaurant, we think that's the easy next move.' It's just them signing off on it saying, 'We're looking forward to doing something like that.'"
Where do things go from here in order to help expand on that initiative and continue the goal of ensuring a safe and secure entertainment district in Buffalo?
Nowakowski feels there needs to be an expanded footprint of the Chippewa detail.
"And then ultimately, we need to have even more enhanced communication with the Buffalo Police Department, where we know establishments during holidays and special events will bring in and draw a large density of people down there," Nowakowski added. "As we know, with a large density of people, more issues can happen. So I think that better communication, a larger footprint, and ultimately better patrolling of these areas in the sense of that we need to get firm."
Nowakowski is also hoping to find a way to crack down on the youth problem in that area.
"Those that are under the age of 21 are coming down, not consuming alcohol in the establishment, sometimes they're consuming it beforehand or consuming it in their cars. I know it sounds archaic and I'm going to get pushback, but we need to patrol the areas where we can't allow you to walk around and menace, and then create issues that spill out into the street and create an unsafe environment for everybody," Nowakowski said.
As for Ring, he feels the time is now to come up with a real plan that will be permanently enacted, and not just enforced in times like the summer months.
"We've had numerous meetings over the years, and we've done things to be somewhat proactive with closing the street down to vehicular traffic to create some sense of control. But at the end of the day, it's obviously not enough," Ring said. "We're looking to make some more drastic measures that we think would improve the overall safety, but also the experience for people that are coming downtown."
According to Ring, though, any sort of concrete plan to implement those permanent measures is going to take a change in legislation to rezone the street from a public street to a private entertainment corridor.
"Speaking to city officials, it could take anywhere from 6-to-8 months to get the legislation written, it does have to go in front of the Council and get voted on. So we understand it's a work in progress," Ring acknowledged. "We just want to know that, basically, we're moving towards something more permanent than the temporary barricade bike-rack street closure that we're using right now."
Ring is hopeful to get the ball moving on a permanent safety play so come next year, when the weather starts breaking and people start going out again, they can have a plan in place to further enhance the Chippewa District experience.