The Buffalo School System and Media Fail Kids

And they fail to protect kids. In the case of the schools, it seems they are trying to keep the district out of the news at all costs. In the case of the media they are trying to undermine the credibility of the source, apparently because he didn't go to the "legitimate media" first. Say that again. The media is helping to cover up assaults on children out of jealousy. Or so it seems to me.

Tom Knighton has taken up the charge that Detective Rich Hy (Angry Cops) of the Buffalo PD, started, about the evil that exists in the Buffalo Public School System. Here is the trigger warning that Mr. Knighton provided one article.

Warning: This piece covers some sensitive topics involving violence against children. If this is something you just can't handle, consider yourself warned.

Before we get started on the media insanity, I just want to note that the Buffalo Public School system is going to investigate themselves to be sure they did nothing wrong. Any bets on whether or not they will discover anything? I would bet 50-to-1 odds that they will investigate and discover that they are perfect, with absolutely no liability for civil suits on this issue.

We will start with Knighton's treatment of the Buffalo media. The Buffalo Media Is As Evil As the School System

The local news media in Buffalo didn't fall all over themselves to pick up this thread and do some investigative reporting. Local NBC affiliate, WGRZ went straight to defending the school district, without even bothering to say what they were defending the district from. The local CBS affiliate, WIVB, went straight for a character assassination on Detective Hy. Why? Because they are clearly in the pocket of the school board and the city, and are probably miffed at the fact that Hy went on a podcast, where he could have an hour to speak his mind, rather than go on a local news outlet for 4 minutes, and then get preempted by the local traffic report.

To be fair, not every media outlet covered itself in crap instead of glory. Newsbusters noted one that seemed interested in actually covering the story

That would be WBEN.

As for the media as whole in Buffalo...

Yet, as Hy told me, this is a systemic issue in Buffalo. The media should be chomping at the bit to make something of this story. They should be tripping over themselves looking into the allegations and seeing what they can find. Instead, they're mostly carrying water for a school system that is credibly accused of covering up sexual assaults against students by an SVU detective in their own police department.

Next we have What the Buffalo School System Is Doing Is Downright EVIL

Over the weekend, Buffalo SVU Detective Rich Hy, known on social media as Angry Cops, was featured on a special episode of the Unsubscribe Podcast. There, he unveiled significant problems with the schools there. In particular, how they're explicitly and actively working to protect people who hurt children, at least that's how I see what he unveiled.

This is a case Hy mentioned in the first Unsubscribe Podcast video.

Hy recounting a child who told a school counselor that she was being beaten by her father. The counselor didn't believe her, apparently claiming the girl had a history of lying – which can be a symptom of child abuse, for the record – and so he ignored it. Then, the child showed the counselor a video of her being beaten on her phone. He then asked her about it later, and the child confirmed that it was her on the video, and it was of her father beating her.

Again, the counselor ignored it.

It took a third incident where the student was visibly suffering from a beating for the incidents to be reported to the police.

Lastly we have the following: Buffalo School Story Not Getting Any Better

Hy's discussed a few cases, but I was curious how common this was. While he didn't have any hard numbers, he said he's had two cases of schools covering up abuse that he termed as "egregious" in the last six months. With 12 special victims unit detectives working for the Buffalo Police Department, if that is the norm, you're looking at 24 egregious cases in that time period or nearly 50 per year. As this seems to cover at least two years, we're looking at somewhere around 100 egregious cases.

Then Mr. Knighton reminds us that all of the victims are minors under the age of 18. In at least one cover up, the administrators are refusing to talk to the prosecutors in the DA's office

As it stands, we're looking at possibly hundreds of cases of sexual assault being covered up by the schools, most likely student-on-student assaults, but parent-on-student cases also being hidden. All of these are incidents that schools are required to report under mandatory reporting laws, only Buffalo schools aren't doing it.

All this in one school district, determined to avoid bad press. Or something. How widespread is this?

Click the "Buffalo Public Schools" link (also at the bottom of this post) for more on this subject.