WBFO continues our reporting on driving while Black in Buffalo by taking a deeper dive into the traffic stop receipts issued by the Buffalo Police Department.
Buffalo's police officers are mandated to issue a stop receipt to drivers they pull over when they do not issue a ticket.
The receipts are designed to increase police transparency, and have been in use since June 2020.
WBFO recently analyzed traffic stop receipts issued by the BPD between June 2020 and June 2023, and found that Black drivers are 3.1x more likely to be stopped by the city's police compared to white drivers.
That was just one of seven findings from WBFO’s analysis that point to there being racial disparities in traffic stops conducted by the BPD.
WBFO also found that zip codes with majority Black residents have more total stops than those with majority white residents, indicating that majority white areas and majority Black areas are policed differently.
In 22% of cases, officers are not properly recording the race of the driver, as required by the city’s Right to Know Law, established in July 2021.
Findings
WBFO has now analyzed the dataset according to council district. These are the main takeaways:
1. In all nine council districts, Black people are stopped disproportionately to their population. Though the margins become significantly smaller (<5%) when it comes to the last three districts when ranked in order of greatest disproportionality. Those districts in order of the greatest disproportionality are:
Lovejoy
Delaware
South
Fillmore
Niagara
University
North
Masten
Ellicott
The top three districts in the above list have majority white residents.
2. White people are underrepresented in the stop receipt data in relation to their population in all nine council districts
3. Fillmore District has the most traffic stops
4. South District has the least
5. Fillmore District has 4x the number of total stops compared to South District. Put in an alternative way, stops in South District are 80% less likely to occur than in Fillmore District. Fillmore District’s population is 40% Black and 40% white. Whereas South District’s population is 87% white and 5% Black
6. The top two districts in terms of total stops are Fillmore and Masten Districts, which combine for a third of all stops in the city.
Reactions
Fillmore District Councilmember, Mitch Nowakowski, has already filed WBFO’s original findingswith the Common Council, where it was sent to the Police Oversight Committee.
The next meeting of that committee is yet to be scheduled, but Nowakowski says he is crafting a formal letter to Buffalo’s Police Commissioner, Joseph Gramaglia, to get a suitable date and time in the books in the coming weeks, and for Gramaglia to be present.
“Obviously with Fillmore being the highest that is recorded, I’m really concerned,” Nowakowski said. “So I want to be rational and provide the police commissioner time to review this data to come to the table to work this out.”
Fillmore District may lead the pack when it comes to the most stops, but Masten District is not far behind. In fact, the two districts combined account for a third of all stop receipts issued in the city. Both districts have a significant share of Black residents according to U.S. Census data and the Partnership for the Public Good's council factsheets.
Lovejoy District is in the middle of the pack for total stops, but the majority white area takes first place for disproportionate stops for Black people in relation to their population.
Just 37% of residents in the district are Black, yet Black people account for 68% of all stop receipts issued there.
Stats like that provide confirmation rather than revelation for Professor Henry Louis Taylor Jr., director of the University at Buffalo’s Center for Urban Studies. He gave his summation of WBFO’s breakdown of the data by council district.
“It confirms what we have long suspected. And that is that a system of the profiling of African Americans exists in the city of Buffalo,” Taylor said.
“Even in those neighborhoods and communities where only a small number of African Americans live - such as in the North District, and Lovejoy, and Delaware, and even in the South District - you find astounding number of Blacks who are stopped for these traffic stops. And so it says to me that anywhere you go in the city of Buffalo, if you're driving, you're going to be targeted.”
When asked for comment on WBFO's findings, Lovejoy District Councilmember, Bryan Bollman, said: “I’m currently reviewing the article filed by Councilmember Nowakowski filed in Tuesday’s [Nov. 28] council meeting. The item will be sent to the Police Oversight Committee. I hope that our Commissioner of the Buffalo Police Department will be present for this conversation.”
Delaware District comes second in terms of disproportionate stops - 11% of residents in the district are Black, yet 32% of stop receipts issued by the BPD are for Black drivers. When asked about this finding, Delaware District Councilman, Joel Feroleto, declined to comment at this time.
Chair of the Police Oversight Committee, Councilman David A. Rivera, echoes Bollman's sentiments - he says that he too hopes that Gramaglia and the police command staff will be present at the next meeting to give their perspective on WBFO’s findings, particularly when it comes to racial disparities.
“We want to make sure that they look at the analysis, the findings that you have brought before us, and so they can come in and explain some of their concerns that they may have as a result of this, or even give an explanation as to why this is occurring,” Rivera said.
"But it is concerning to me, being a person of color myself, to make sure that when people are stopped, it's for legitimate reasons - it's not under a pretext, it's not profiling," he added.
As well as Police Oversight Committee chair, Rivera represents the Niagara District. Officers are not properly recording the race of the driver for 30% of receipts issued in the district, as required by the city’s Right to Know Law.
“That’s a concern of mine,” Rivera said.
He speaks as a former sworn member of the BPD himself, having worked as a patrol officer and then a detective sergeant between 1982 and 2008, according to his bio on the council’s website.
“You have reports that are taken each and every day by police officers, and you want to make sure that all the boxes are filled out. And if they're not filled out, a supervisor should look into it and try to find out why those boxes weren't checked out,” he said.
“I would go back to the commissioner who can go back down to the supervisors and try to find out why police officers are not filling out the blanks. And they should, by the time they leave their job that night, have everything filled out. So I don't understand why the reports aren't complete,” he added.
Despite making phone calls, sending texts and emails, and hand-delivering a formal letter requesting an interview with Gramaglia, WBFO is yet to hear directly from him on this matter.
In response to our recent analysis of the stop receipts and first set of findings, the city’s Director of Communications and Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Mike DeGeorge, issued this statement.
"The City of Buffalo established the Stop Receipt Policy as part of its Social Reform Agenda in 2021. The Stop Receipt Policy was designed to provide motorists with information and clarity of why they were pulled over. Individuals who receive stop receipts are not being ticketed or receiving a summons. The Buffalo Police Department added Police Body Cameras to help ensure transparency involving interactions between officers and citizens. If anyone has an issue regarding a traffic stop, they're asked to call the Buffalo Police Department and file a complaint."
WBFO fact-checked this statement, and as evidenced by the data, stop receipts have been in use since June 2020.
More detail
Below is a more detailed breakdown of findings by council district, in order of most stops:
Fillmore (#1)
a) Total population of 27,022
b) 2,312 stops or 18% of total stops
c) 520 stops or 22.5% of stops in this council district have race recorded as unknown/not reported/not applicable.
Masten (#2)
a) Total population 27,671
b) 1,923 stops or 15% of total stops
c) 8% or 159 stops in this council district have race recorded as unknown/not reported/not applicable
North (#3)
a) Total population 31,411
b) 46% of stops have race reported as unknown/not reported/not applicable
Lovejoy (#4)
a) Total population 26,329
b) 18% stops have race recorded as unknown/not reported/not applicable
Ellicott (#5)
a) Total population 26,196
b) 17% of stops have race recorded as unknown/not reported/not applicable
Niagara (#6)
a) Total population 29,958
b) 30% of stops have race recorded as unknown/not reported/not applicable
University (#7)
a) Total population of 30,402
b) 9% of stops have race reported as unknown/not reported/not applicable
Delaware (#8)
a) Total population 29,577
b) 34% of stops have race reported as unknown/not reported/not applicable
South District (#9)
a) Total population 28,953
b) 473 stops or 4% of total stops
c) 54 or 12% of total stops in this district have race reported as unknown/not reported/not applicable.
A note on the data: Data Analyst Alyssa Brouillet contributed to the "Findings" and "More detail" sections of this story.
The traffic stop receipt data can be found at the city's Open Data website. WBFO analyzed stop receipts between June 24 2020 thorough June 24 2023, with the last recorded stop receipt in the dataset issued June 20 2023.
The data regarding population and race demographics for each council district is from the Partnership for Public Good's council district factsheets (2020) and the U.S Census Bureau.
