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Decisions delayed on daytime curfew

photo courtesy of city of Buffalo

The push for a daytime curfew on Buffalo school days is slowing, with details still to be decided.

The curfew is seen as a way to deal with two problems, children not bothering to make it all the way from home to school and a few of them using those hours to commit crimes. City schools have a terrible problem with absenteeism.

University District Common Council Member Rasheed Wyatt is the lead exponent of the curfew but admits there are some concerns about relations between wandering kids and police officers, if the cop stops them.

"We can't continue to ignore that issue. I know just yesterday when I'm driving here on a nice sunny day, you've got kids at 10 o'clock during the day, four or five of them, just walking the streets," Wyatt said.

"We can't just ignore it. We have to do something. Because, number one, we can't continue to let our young people make poor decisions that put them at risk and hinder their future."

Wyatt said this isn't an end to the proposal but simply the need to polish the details. There have been concerns about issues like: where does a cop take the young person after being put in a patrol car and what will the school system do with that young person after being caught skipping school?
 

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.