That title is a fully grammatical sentence. Put another way, it says:
Police of the Town of Police, Poland, who police the police of the Town of Police, Poland, are themselves policed by police of the Town of Police, Poland.
I modeled this after Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. Combining the two, we can create the sentence: Buffalo police Buffalo police police buffalo Buffalo police. This means police of the City of Buffalo, New York, who are policed by police of the City of Buffalo, New York, buffalo (deceive or intimidate) police of the City of Buffalo, New York.
Last month, The Buffalo News reported that Buffalo police captain Amber Beyer, previously suspended in response to racial discrimination and retaliation complaints from members of the Buffalo Police Department’s Behavioral Heath Team (which she led), will now be reassigned to the office of Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia and will be able to “put in for a position on the open transfer list.”
According to the reporting, this result follows a departmental disciplinary hearing in which Captain Beyer pleaded guilty to unspecified charges and is the second disciplinary action taken against Captain Beyer for her conduct last year. After Captain Beyer allegedly subjected her colleagues to a “racist rant” that is now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit, Commissioner Gramaglia appears to have ordered Captain Beyer to take implicit bias training. The Buffalo News used the passive voice in avoidance of specifying who ordered she take the training, but according to the Buffalo Police Department Manual of Procedures, the Police Commissioner determines what disciplinary measures, if any, officers face.
A Buffalo News editorial responding to this story points out: “Whatever the BPD’s implicit bias training includes, it does not seem to have taken hold with Beyer, at least not enough to prevent September’s alleged high-volume racial slurs in front of three Black members of her team.”
Further, the appropriateness of bias training alone as a disciplinary measure is questionable since Buffalo police officers reportedly are already receiving implicit bias training as a matter of course. Commissioner Gramaglia claimed in November 2022 that “since June 40% of the department has been trained in implicit bias.”
The impact of the department’s bias training is also questionable since the Buffalo News Editorial Board previously revealed that a current Buffalo police officer, Lieutenant Lance Russo, like retired officers who testified in another federal civil rights case, “could not remember when he received in-service training on racial bias, though he is ‘sure we have.’”
Twenty-three years ago, the City of Buffalo established an executive agency to monitor and review police department training programs and investigations of misconduct and to “eliminate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination.” I will discuss the status of that commission in my next post.