Rod Watson

Jan 31, 2024 | buffalonews.com | Rod Watson

When this column debuted in October 1992, Bill Clinton was on his way to winning the White House, where he would balance the federal budget for the first time in three decades while being impeached as a result of purely private behavior. Closer to home, the 38.3% of Black Buffalonians in poverty was more than double the 17.9% rate for white people in the city, while the 52% Hispanic poverty rate was nearly three times the white rate, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Jan 24, 2024 | buffalonews.com | Rod Watson

Call it the courtroom version of the shell game. As his estate seeks a measure of justice for Richard A. Metcalf Jr., the inmate a state agency concluded died at the hands of poorly trained Erie County sheriff’s deputies in 2012, legal sleight of hand may mean that the criminal justice system holds no one responsible for that shoddy training. Plaintiffs seeking civil justice in a jail death like Metcalf’s can’t go after the Sheriff’s Office.

Jan 17, 2024 | buffalonews.com | Rod Watson

Imagine you’re the Dustin Hoffman character in “The Graduate,” rushing to get to the wedding so that you can speak up and not have to live with the consequences of forever holding your peace. If you’re a Buffalo resident concerned about the new police contract that contains more money for cops, you don’t have to imagine. The only difference is that, unlike in the movie, you’ve already missed your chance to speak.

Jan 10, 2024 | buffalonews.com | Rod Watson

Apparently, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s controversial law targeting law-abiding pistol-permit holders has not done much to curb gun violence. But don’t take my word for it. Take hers. Over the weekend, the governor extended for the umpteenth time the “Declaration of Disaster Emergency” first enacted by predecessor Andrew Cuomo in July 2021.

Jan 3, 2024 | buffalonews.com | Rod Watson

Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save With local officials unable or unwilling to lift up low-income mothers and cut childhood poverty, an outside group is coming to Buffalo to implement what seems like the most obvious remedy for people trying to get by without enough money: Give them more money.