All files pertaining to the traffic incident involving a key member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Office and how Buffalo Police handled it have been released, Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan announced Thursday.
He explained it’s a demonstration of the transparency he promised when he took office on New Year’s Day.
“Since early January, our law department has spent over 200 hours combing through those files. We are talking about more than 3,200 pages, and in addition to that 12 hours of audio recordings,” Ryan said. “It was painstaking, time-consuming work as the Corporation Counsel's Office made sure that witness information, identifying information, was not released to the public inadvertently, and that people's names were protected.”
In April 2024, Daniel “DJ” Granville, the Erie County Sheriff’s Chief of Narcotics and Intelligence, was operating a county-owned vehicle when investigators said he struck seven parked cars in Buffalo. Calls to 911 at the time categorized it as a “hit and run.”
Among Buffalo Police officers responding to the scene were Lucia Esquilin, who was then a lieutenant and is also Granville’s sister-in-law.
Concerns about officer conduct led to calls for investigations, but citing a conflict-of-interest, Erie County District Attorney Michael Keane requested a special investigator.
The Niagara County District Attorney, Brian Seaman, was appointed to investigate and in October 2025 concluded there was not enough evidence to charge investigating Buffalo Police officers with wrongdoing. The city has posted a link to its public records website, where the list of files may be found. Users must first register to make a request.
Mayor Ryan said he had not yet reviewed the files closely, but it was important to release them to the public.
“Everything that was in the file is out on the website right now. With that in mind, I'm not going to offer any conclusions today about the substance of the investigation,” he said. “In the coming weeks, we're going to do a deeper dive and review the entire disciplinary process and determine what changes we need to make to strengthen accountability and transparency and rebuild public trust.”
