Gunning for the guns: Police cracking down in Buffalo to reduce shootings

The 29-year-old man had a loaded ghost gun in a holster strapped to his right hip, according to the Erie County District Attorney's Office. He was also wearing a bulletproof vest. 

At the same time, Buffalo Police SWAT, joined by officers from multiple agencies, raided Gotthart's house. Using a search warrant, they said they  found three unregistered handguns in a bedroom and what the DA's Office described as an "arsenal" of rifles, shotguns and magazines. They also found gun-making tools – used to assemble ghost guns – and a large amount of ammunition in the house, the DA said in a statement.

The arrest and raid are among a series that law enforcement officials have conducted across the city.

Their aim: reducing gun violence.

"The focus is guns," said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. "What drives the violence is guns."

The Buffalo Police Department's Intelligence Unit is working closely with officers and investigators from the Erie County Sheriff's Office Narcotics and Intelligence Unit, State Police squads including the Community Stabilization Unit and Violent Gang and Narcotic Enforcement Team, the DA's new Narcotics and Intelligence Unit, as well as the FBI Safe Streets Task Force and other federal agencies.

They are going after the "trigger pullers and the gun traffickers," Gramaglia said.

Last Friday afternoon in the lobby of Buffalo police headquarters, detectives laid out some of the firearms they seized over the past few days, some of them just hours earlier – revolvers, semi-automatic pistols and assault rifles. Three of the weapons were ghost guns that don't have serial numbers and are bought as parts and then assembled. Detectives had so many guns, they ran out of room on the table and went to get a second table. They filled that one up, too, along with a plastic bag filled with a quarter kilo of fentanyl and another bag containing 4 ounces of crack cocaine.

"We're getting a lot of weaponry off the streets," Gramaglia told reporters at a news conference.

17 arrested in raids

Five locations were searched on April 28 and 29 – Gotthart's  house on Wright Avenue, a house on Grider Street, a house on Oakmont Street, a business on Clinton Street and an apartment on East Amherst Street – in addition to a car stop in the Town of Tonawanda.

Five people were arrested:

Gotthart was charged with felony weapons possession charges, as well as unlawful wearing of a body vest.

Gotthart's attorney, Robert Goldstein, said police had warrants to search Gotthart, his car and his house.

"We'll be evaluating the history and the information that was used to obtain those search warrants," he said. 

On April 28, detectives with the Sheriff's Office led a raid at an apartment on East Amherst where they said they found an illegal loaded pistol and a digital scale with suspected cocaine residue on it. Later, Lemuel Figueroa, 35, of Buffalo, was stopped in a vehicle in  a parking lot on Milens Road in the Town of Tonawanda. Investigators allegedly found a loaded handgun in the vehicle.   

Arrested in the raids April 29 at the Grider, Oakmont and Clinton locations were Couron L. Virgil-Mack, 32, of Buffalo, his wife, Brianna T. Virgil-Mack, 32, and his father, Desmond McCloud, 52. In those raids led by the Sheriff's Office, investigators allegedly found guns and 5 pounds of marijuana at the Grider Street house, 10 pounds of marijuana at the Clinton Street business and firearms, cocaine and a digital scale at the Oakmont house. One of the guns recovered was reported stolen in Buffalo in October 2017, officers said. The three were each charged with felony counts of weapons possession. The Virgil-Macks were also charged with felony counts of cannabis possession. New York's new cannabis laws prohibit the possession of more than 5 pounds of marijuana. McCloud was charged with another felony, possession of a controlled substance.

On March 3, state police led raids at a house on Concord Street in the Broadway-Fillmore section of Buffalo, leading to the arrest of 12 people. Investigators said they found five illegal guns, including a ghost gun and one reported stolen from Alabama. They also found crack cocaine, heroin and packaging paraphernalia, officers said. 

75 people shot in 2022

The number of shootings in Buffalo rose dramatically in 2020 and the first half of 2021, but the rate has slowed since. Many cities across the U.S. have experienced a similar pattern in shootings over the last two years.

As of Thursday, 75 people have been shot in Buffalo this year, according to Buffalo police data. Twenty of those victims died, including a man shot Wednesday night on Person Street. That reflects about a 30% decrease in the number of shooting victims compared to the same period last year. However, it's still above the 10-year average of about 62 people through the end of April.

Police and prosecutors are determined to keep driving those numbers down.

One issue they face: a lot more guns on the streets.

"They are so easy to get, and the market is flooded," said D.J. Granville, chief of the Sheriff's Office narcotics and intelligence unit, of guns that aren't legally owned.

It used to be that the norm was to turn up one or two guns during a raid. "Now, we're running into houses and there are five, six, 10 guns," he said.

Police say they know that a very small number of people – about two dozen – are behind most of the gun violence, and that is who they want to target.

"They're the trigger pullers," he said. "They're the ones who are going to do the hits."

They also realize that the raids can be alarming to law-abiding neighbors. To  allay some of those concerns, the Buffalo police send their Neighborhood Engagement Team officers to blocks after a raid to answer questions and identify other problems in the area.

"We need to have a direct line of communication to the community," said Capt. Tommy Champion.

Buffalo police and officers from the other agencies come together weekly to review each shooting to help connect the dots between cases.

The State Police Community Stabilization Unit and Violent Gang Narcotics Enforcement Teams are among the squads from local agencies brought in to aid in investigations.

"These units are comprised of highly skilled troopers and investigators who specialize in these types of investigations," said Major Eugene J. Staniszewski, the Buffalo-area trooper commander.

The police rely heavily on data from the Erie County Crime Analysis Center to identify suspects as well as "micro hot spots" of gun and drug activity, Gramaglia said. Patrol officers are then directed to spend down time during their shifts at these hot spots to deter crime, as part of an effort funded by the state's Gun Involved Violence Elimination grant program.

To streamline these cases, the DA's Office reconfigured its narcotics bureau into a narcotics and intelligence bureau, District Attorney John J. Flynn Jr. said.

"I wanted to have a bureau in my office that mirrors what the Sheriff's Office and the State Police have," he said. The idea is for prosecutors to work in tandem with the police agencies on gun-related cases.

The authorities know that there is no way to get every illegal gun off the streets of Buffalo. But they hope that the raids and arrests teach a lesson.

"It sends a message that we're being proactive," Flynn said. "We're being aggressive. We are doubling down on getting guns and drugs off the streets and doubling down on getting the individuals who are selling drugs and traffic guns off the streets as well."

News staff reporter Aaron Besecker contributed to this story.