Local officials have been asked repeatedly about the case of an Erie County Sheriff’s official who is the subject of three investigations involving multiple, late-night car crashes last spring, a case that only came to light following news reports a year after it happened.
And they have been consistent in their answer: We’re not talking about it.
“There’s a process that has to play out,” said Buffalo Mayor Christopher Scanlon in April, a childhood friend of Granville who previously benefited from the family’s fundraising.
“Conducting a complete and impartial investigation is our primary concern,” said Buffalo Police Chief Alphonso Wright, the same month, in his only public statement before the Common Council.
“I’m still not interjecting myself into the investigation by making any comments other than eagerly awaiting the conclusion of their investigation,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said last month. “I don’t even want to say ‘eagerly,’ because I’m not trying to press them to hurry up with it either.”
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Both county and city police officials also said they’re waiting on Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman, whose office was asked to take on the case because of a conflict of interest with the Erie County DA’s Office. Seaman has refused to comment on the status of his investigation.
What they don’t want to talk about is Erie County Sheriff’s Office’s chief of narcotics Daniel “D.J.” Granville, who crashed his county-owned pickup truck into seven parked vehicles on the Lower West Side in April 2024. Five responding officers, including Granville’s sister-in-law, arrived on scene. No field sobriety test was apparently given. No Erie County sheriff’s deputies showed up, despite that being official procedure. Granville ultimately was fined for jaywalking.
Attempts from news media and elected officials to gain even basic information have been repeatedly rebuffed.
The Granville case raises issues about police transparency. What it highlights is a pattern of secrecy
The struggle to access information about the D.J. Granville case has been the source of news coverage for months. But that struggle it is not a unique story.
Despite that, almost every form of local news media has played a role in uncovering information in the Granville case. That includes Investigative Post, which broke the story in March on its website; WGRZ, which broke the story for TV and aired other exclusives; and The Buffalo News, which has written extensively on the case and released the first video showing Granville’s county pickup truck slamming into two parked cars, backing up and driving off.
Information about the incident has come from whistleblowers, lawsuits, request under the Freedom of Information Law to other non-police agencies, tips, and information and interviews with residents who heard or saw the crash happen.
Where it has not come from is elected officials and taxpayer-funded, public law enforcement agencies. The Buffalo Police Department, which can be responsive to FOIL requests, has not been so in the Granville case.
The Sheriff’s Office generally provides information that forwards its mission and agenda, but information requests regarding matters such as jail deaths, payroll and employee discipline typically do not receive a timely response, if they receive any response at all.
“It’s not just ignoring FOIL and the requirements of the statute to simply acknowledge the request and then fulfill it,” said Geoff Kelly, a reporter for Investigative Post. “It’s unresponsiveness generally, unwillingness to entertain questions, to answer phone calls, to return phone calls, to respond to emails. They frequently, with Investigative Post, have chosen to just be a dead letter office.”
Garcia said that in response to transparency concerns raised with him, he intends to request the hiring of two additional full-time FOIL officers in next year’s budget.
His office also released data indicating that out of nearly 1,400 FOIL requests the office has received since July 2022, slightly more than half – 52% – were denied. The Sheriff’s Office said half of those denials occurred because the records sought did not exist. The other half were denied for “other reasons.”
But even granted requests are delayed. When The Buffalo News requested an existing copy of the Sheriff’s Office’s policies and procedures, it was not released for five weeks. That same information for the Buffalo Police Department is available online.
“What we’re seeing play out here is one of the most important civic lessons that we can have in this country, and that is an illustration of the role of the press on the one hand, and the way business as usual is conducted within government and the spheres of ‘public service,'” said Buffalo lawyer Joseph Finnerty, who handles First Amendment cases. “There’s a constant antagonism. Public officials don’t like disclosure, in the final analysis. They like to do what they want to do without having to answer for it. And the role of the media is exactly the opposite. It’s to shine the light.”
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The wall around Granville
Since the Granville story first broke, journalists have interviewed property crash victims, reported on Granville’s time off on sick and paid administrative leave, publicized union activity related to Granville’s defense, outlined the Granville family’s political ties, and investigated Granville’s pension options – all with no assistance from official police sources.
In addition to not providing information, it appears some in law enforcement have taken pre-emptive action against a journalist working on the case.
Most FOIL requests by investigating local news organizations have either received no response or denial. That includes time sheets and payroll records for Granville, and similar information for members of the Buffalo Police Department. Payroll information for taxpayer-funded employees is a matter of public record. Those requests have been denied by the Sheriff’s Office and Buffalo Police Department, which has led news organizations to track down the information through other government offices.
It’s not just news media that are getting denied access to records. Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal, a civil rights lawyer, has submitted two FOIL requests to the Sheriff’s Office in connection with the Granville case. She received no response to either one, despite state disclosure laws requiring them.
Legislator denied footage in Granville matter: ‘It’s a baloney response’
Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal has asked the Buffalo Police Department for dash camera and body camera footage related to the car crashes involving Sheriff’s Office Chief Daniel “D.J.” Granville, and is challenging the police department’s denial of information.
“There’s no law that says if there’s a criminal case, that thou shalt not release it,” she said. “The law says that you can use that as a reason to choose not do it, in your discretion. But there’s no law that says ‘Thou shalt not.'”
“The Freedom of Information Law is the floor of public disclosure, not the ceiling,” said Michael Higgins, a lawyer who has worked on police transparency lawsuits as a former staff attorney with the University at Buffalo Law School’s Civil Rights & Transparency Clinic. “Every government agency can always decide to release information to the public, to help the public to learn more about their operations and to evaluate whether or not our government officials are doing things in the interests of the citizens, or consistent with their oaths and duty.”
Requests for records like the traffic infractions recently issued by the Buffalo Police Department against Granville, for which the department issued a news release, have been denied. A separate FOIL request to the Buffalo Traffic Violations Agency, which does not fall under the Police Department, was also denied because “the department does not maintain the records.” The agency referred The Buffalo News back to the Police Department.
The blowback
The seeming lack of urgency to resolve the case or provide information about it has bred public skepticism and anger.
5 Buffalo cops placed on leave; Granville issued new citations as probe continues
Five members of the Buffalo Police Department have been placed on administrative leave, while Daniel “D.J.” Granville was issued three new traffic citations for the April 11, 2024, incident.
When Wright told Common Council members at a Police Oversight Committee in April that its “sprawling investigation has left no stone unturned in its pursuit of the truth” and that its investigators had interviewed victims and witnesses “in some cases, multiple times,” Committee Chairman David Rivera asked how that could be true when victims interviewed by WGRZ reporters had not yet been contacted by anyone at the department.
Indeed, Charlie Specht, a former Buffalo News reporter who broke the story for WGRZ, said he heard an earful from residents on the streets where the crashes occurred.
“I talked with other people who said, ‘Oh yeah, I had video. They didn’t want it,’ ” he said. “A lot of the people that I’ve spoken to in that neighborhood, they said things like, ‘The biggest gang in Buffalo wears blue.’ I had never heard that before.”
Specht also said Granville and his supporters began tracking him and looking up his past interactions with law enforcement when he began investigating in February. That includes a time when Specht said he required medical assistance while patronizing an East Aurora bar in January.
East Aurora Police Chief Patrick Welch confirmed to The Buffalo News that a law clerk for Thomas Eoannou, a defense lawyer assisting Granville earlier this year, submitted a FOIL request to his office asking for “any and all police reports, records, dispatches, body cams, photographs, statements” and any other documentation “as it relates to Charles Specht” on Jan. 4 at 12:18 a.m. at Rookies Sports Bar.
Welch said he fulfilled the FOIL request, in accordance with the law. Police video of Specht at the bar subsequently began circulating.
Eoannou declined to comment about the matter. Terrence Connors, who represents Granville, said he has seen the circulating police video but was not Granville’s lawyer at the time or involved with the request. He did, however, defend the decision.
“You’ve got an investigative reporter who’s after you all the time and looking at things and looking into your background,” Connors said. “Why would Tom Eoannou not be allowed to look into Charlie’s background? You know, I don’t see the difference. I think it’s a double standard.”
News staff reporters Justin Sondel and Aaron Besecker contributed to this story.
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