Buffalo Police Department

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 rioter to the ground, causing a skull injury and bleeding from his head while they walked past him prior to giving him treatment.

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 was Oliver M. Bragg. He was promoted to detective and stayed with the police until his retirement in 1946. Fifty-one Buffalo police officers have died in the line of duty. The first of these was George Dill who was shot and killed in 1865.

In 1930 the department changed the design of its badges. Press reports at the time indicated that Mayor Frank X. Schwab had distributed official badges to his friends causing confusion.

BPD was formerly arranged with stations into "precincts" like the NYPD (total 17) but this was replaced with five districts and subdivided into sectors.

In 2018, the BPD, along with the Buffalo Fire Department, moved into a new joint headquarters building in the former Michael J. Dillon Federal Courthouse. The Buffalo Police Commissioner is Joseph A. Gramaglia, he replaced Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood. The 1st Deputy Commissioner is Barbara Lark.