Source The Buffalo News, N.Y.
The Buffalo Police Department is deploying a new strategy for solving homicides: circulating videos of victims’ family members asking the public to come forward with information.
Buffalo Council member calls for city to establish gun violence prevention office
A Buffalo Common Council member whose son survived the mass shooting at a Tops grocery store is pushing for the establishment of a city Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
The department will be coupling this strategy with the use of billboards, a method it has used on cases in the past. A billboard advertisement at the corner of Cherry Street and Michigan Avenue now draws attention to the unsolved slaying of Jazzmine Fomby, the 14-year-old girl who was shot after a party on Alexander Place in early May.
Fomby’s mother, Angel Myree, is featured in a video, and she stood with Mayor Byron Brown and police department brass to announce the new campaign. She recalled her daughter as a funny, loving kid and urged anyone who has information about her daughter’s death to come forward.
“I’d hate for this to happen again,” Myree said.
Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said the billboards, which are paid for with funds seized in narcotics and other criminal investigations, will stay up for about a month while department employees use police social media channels to spread the videos.
The hope is that people with information will see the human toll of the killings and feel compelled to contact police. In Fomby’s case, there are dozens of potential eyewitnesses, many of them likely teenagers, he added.
“I think one of the things that I hope for is that their parents see this video, that they can look at this and then they can maybe look within themselves and think ‘you know, that could have been my child’,” Gramaglia said. “And maybe sit down and talk to their child that they know were probably at that party or know something and talk to your child and get information and come forward.”
The billboard also mentions the Crime Stoppers WNY reward of $7,500 offered to anyone who provides information leading to an arrest in the Fomby homicide case.
City officials said they plan to feature about one case a month and that they have been in contact with the families of other victims.
Brown said the messages shared about Fomby by Myree and other relatives are moving and should make anyone withholding information about the shooting feel the need to turn it over to investigators.
“The video testimonials are powerful, they’re touching, and we hope they will touch the hearts of people who have information to come forward,” Brown said. “We know someone knows something about what happened that night. If you saw something, say something. No detail is too small.”
Gramaglia said that while other evidence plays key roles in homicide investigations, public tips are often crucial to solving cases.
'Babies killing babies': Two teenagers indicted in killing of Buffalo 3-year-old
An Erie County grand jury has indicted two city teens in a Friday night shooting that left a 3-year-old dead and his 7-year-old sister wounded.
In the killing of 3-year-old Ramone Carter last month, Gramaglia has said that witnesses played a significant role in providing information that led to the arrest of a 14-year-old and 16-year-old accused of shooting Carter accidentally while aiming for someone else.
“It’s a combination of the technology, investments in technology that the city and police department have made, as well as that eyewitness testimony, feeding off of each other,” he said.
There have been 22 homicides in Buffalo in 2024. Police have made arrests on 14 of those cases. They have made arrests in 26 homicide investigations in total this year.
___
(c)2024 The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.)
Visit The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.) at www.buffalonews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
