Ex-Buffalo cop Kevin Murphy had a history of misconduct: Investigative Post

Officer Kevin Murphy was fired after pepper-spraying a woman. Documents show he had previously been the subject of complaints, including excessive use of force.

A Buffalo police officer fired for pepper-spraying a woman and falsifying reports to justify his actions has been the subject of nine investigations into allegations ranging from rudeness to excessive force.

Seven investigations took place during Kevin Murphy’s last two years of active duty. Additionally, a city parking enforcement officer whom Murphy threatened and berated complained in 2022, while Murphy was on paid leave awaiting termination for pepper spray Lekisha Neal and falsification of reports.

Other complaints included a allegation that Murphy beat a teenager while arresting him on suspicion of theft. The department could not determine the truth and decided that Murphy should be advised by a deputy chief.

The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association is suing the city seeking Murphy’s reinstatement. After being suspended in the fall of 2020 following the pepper spray incident, he collected $276,000 in salary until an arbitrator upheld his firing last fall.

Disciplinary records released following a Freedom of Information Act request from Investigative Post show no findings in a 2016 complaint filed by a woman who alleged Murphy, hired in 2015, was rude and refused to provide their badge number.

Out of eight investigations launched since 2019, Murphy has been exonerated twice. Two allegations were confirmed, no official conclusions were reached in two other cases, and investigators did not find enough evidence to prove or disprove two complaints.

Anger brings rebuke

On paid leave pending dismissal, Murphy in 2022 reprimanded a city parking enforcement officer. The outburst began after she told Murphy he couldn’t park in a bus zone, according to internal affairs files released by Investigative Post.

It was 3 a.m. Accompanied by a woman, Murphy was heading towards a bar.

“The man said (very aggressively) that he was a cop and had been shot at all day, so he doesn’t care, he’s going to have a drink and I better not give him of fines, otherwise there will be a war with the police over parking and “The police, all he has to do is make one phone call, everyone leaves “fuck us, he’s going to make a phone call and give me a ticket in my work car in one call,” the parking enforcement officer wrote in a statement sent to Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia the next day.

“While calling me all kinds of names and threatening me, the police will find out who I am and ‘fuck’ me all the time, even outside of work.”

The parking enforcement officer wrote that Murphy was walking toward her, screaming.

“So I walked to my truck because I wasn’t sure what he was going to do,” she wrote. “All this while the officer was going drinking and he was the driver.”

Murphy, who received a reprimand, admitted he had been drinking, according to internal affairs records.

Insufficient evidence

Two weeks before the 2020 pepper spray incident that cost Murphy his job, he arrested a teenager whose mother filed an excessive force complaint on her son’s behalf more than a month later. She told internal affairs that she contacted District E headquarters when the incident occurred, but no one returned her calls. District E is located in the northeastern part of the city, including Kensington-Bailey.

The teenager and his three companions were suspected of having committed an armed robbery in a convenience store. When police arrived, they fled on foot. Murphy and Officer Andrew Ferrentino pursued the youth to Trinidad Park, passing Officer Joseph McCarthy, who had caught up with another suspect.

A body camera captured McCarthy saying “You’re lucky I caught you” as he took his suspect into custody, according to a summary of the investigation prepared by internal affairs. McCarthy also said he was “nicer” than other officers, according to the summary.

“When asked what the nicest thing he did, he said he didn’t know,” an internal affairs investigator wrote in the summary. “He stated that he did not see Officers Murphy and Ferrentino apprehend their subject and that he did not mean anything by the comment.”

After catching up with the teen, Murphy, in a report filed the day of the arrest, admitted to hitting him several times on the back of his left shoulder to gain control when he refused to put his hands behind him. his back. In his report filed that day, Ferrentino said he grabbed the teen by one arm and the back while he was handcuffed.

The teenager’s mother told Home Affairs that her son’s face was bruised when she picked him up from the police station, where he told her the officers had done nothing wrong.

“After her son was released, she continued to ask him what happened and why he had bruises on his face,” Officer Gaisha Wilson wrote in an email to Robert Rosenswie , responsible for internal affairs. “His son said: “The policeman told me to put my hands up, then he hit me in the face. »

The day after his arrest, the teen was treated at Children’s Hospital, where staff diagnosed a mild concussion, according to unsigned handwritten notes in the internal affairs file.

Supervisors approved reports filed by Murphy and Ferrentino the day of the teen’s arrest, ruling in March 2020 that the use of force was appropriate. On February 17, 2021, Commissioner Byron Lockwood determined that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether the officers’ actions were justified and decided that a deputy chief should speak to them about the matter.

Investigators have not taken an official statement from the teenager or canvass the area for witnesses or take statements from officers until fall 2020, four months after the investigation officially opens and one week before the department opens an investigation into the incident of pepper spraying that led to Murphy’s firing.

As part of its request for internal affairs reports on Murphy, Investigative Post requested witness statements and video footage. Records show 16 officers gave sworn statements. The department released none, nor did it provide body camera footage that captured McCarthy’s statement that he was nicer than other officers.

Investigative Post called on the city’s legal department to request release of the records withheld by police.

The department also determined that there was insufficient evidence to prove or disprove an allegation by a man who said Murphy was rude and made a homophobic slur against him after arresting him in July 2020. There was no body camera footage that could have determined the truth. Murphy told an internal affairs investigator that he did not activate his camera due to privacy concerns for the man.

The department determined Murphy and other officers did nothing wrong after a woman in 2019 complained he assaulted and wrongfully imprisoned her while taking her infant daughter. A child protective services worker was in the home when police forced entry to retrieve the child, who had been reported as malnourished by a pediatrician.

Other investigations include:

• A 2020 investigation that exonerated Murphy and other officers when the city received notices of claim from protesters who said their civil rights were violated when they were arrested during a 2020 protest outside City Hall following the killing of George Floyd.
• A 2019 case that began after a woman complained that Murphy was harassing her by coming to her home, stopping her and asking where her son, who had warrants for his arrest, was. The woman’s son was arrested two days after he filed the complaint, and the case was dismissed without Murphy finding any wrongdoing.
• A 2020 investigation sparked by Gramaglia, who asked internal affairs to open an investigation after a media outlet, anonymous in documents released by the department, sent a video posted on social media to Michael DeGeorge, the spokesperson word of the ministry.

Titled “Buffalo NY Police Officer Attacks Pregnant Woman,” the video shot on a phone by someone in a car shows an officer identified by an internal affairs officer as Murphy yelling at the vehicle’s occupants, who had was stopped due to a missing headlight. . No one filed a complaint, and the investigation ended after Murphy and other officers wrote reports about what happened.

“Please close the case, there is no complainant at this time and I see no wrongdoing on the part of the officers,” Rosenswie wrote in an email to an officer assigned to internal affairs and Carmen Menza, now retired and then head of administration. District E. “If a complainant comes forward, we can review it. »

published 28 seconds ago – May 8, 2024