Buffalo Police Department

Law enforcement agency serving the City of Buffalo, New York Law enforcement agency The Buffalo Police Department (BPD) is the second-largest city police force in the state of New York. In 2012, it had over nine hundred employees, including over seven hundred police officers. The Buffalo Police are headquartered at the City of Buffalo Police and Fire Headquarters at the Michael J. Dillon U.S. Courthouse Building on Court Street in Downtown Buffalo. In 2020, the BPD was in the national spotlight after a video showed BPD officers shoving a 75-year old protestor to the ground, causing a skull injury and bleeding from his head while they walked past him prior to giving him treatment. History The City of Buffalo Police Department was established in 1871, taking over for the previous Niagara Frontier Police District (c. 1866) that oversaw not only Buffalo, but also Tonawanda and Wheatfield. The first BPD force had 204 men. The BPD appointed its first female police officer prior to World War I. The department hired George C. Sarsnett, its first Black policeman in 1919. He served the city for nineteen years dying of natural causes in 1937. The second Black policeman, hired that same year w