Buffalo police ‘led patrols’ target gun violence hotspots

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Buffalo Police Officer Marc Hurst and Lt. John Sullivan stopped at a convenience store on East Ferry Street on Buffalo’s East Side.

“How is business today?” » Hurst asked an employee behind the counter.

“Half and half,” the employee said. “Too hot.”

Hurst and Sullivan were on a directed patrol. It’s a strategy used by Buffalo police to combat gun violence.

Here’s how it works:

Crime analysts identify hot spots where there were shots fired and gunshots reported. They map them in 500 foot by 500 foot grids. This information is sent to patrol officers’ cell phones. Then they drive to a hot spot, park their car, turn on their emergency lights, and get out of their car. Then they walk around for about 15-20 minutes. They talk to the people they meet, go to stores and above all… they just try to be visible.

“You know, you walk with people and you stop and talk and see different points of view and get to know each other. And I just think it’s great all around,” Hurst said.

“I can speak for Charlie’s district,” Sullivan said, referring to District C, the Ferry-Fillmore area where he works. “I think a lot of the crime has gone down since we started doing these directed patrols. So I think it’s having a pretty big impact. Also, like I said, getting out, walking around and talking to people is a great thing, it’s also a good thing.”

Lt. Jonathan Pietrzak, who oversees the directed patrol program, says there are studies that show that when police and their squad cars are around, crime goes down.

“The fact that it’s data-driven, we’re not just picking places randomly, but we’re going there for a particular reason, makes a big difference,” he said.

Data from the Buffalo Police Department indicates gun violence has declined in the city over the past two years.

Shootings have skyrocketed in the city in 2020 and 2021, where there have been nearly 300 shootings each of those years. But that number has more than halved by 2023, to 141.

The numbers for 2024 so far appear to follow the same downward trend, with 44 shootings so far compared to 197 in 2022.