The Erie County sheriff's deputies who meet the public out on the road are almost all white.
Of the 150 sworn deputies who are members of the Erie County Sheriff’s Police Benevolent Association, one is Black, one is Native American and one is Hispanic, according to Sheriff’s Office figures provided days ago. Ten road deputies are women, Undersheriff John W. Greenan said.
In sum, the road patrol comes nowhere near matching the diversity of a county that is 75% white, 14% Black, almost 6% Hispanic or Latino and 0.7% Native American, according to census figures.
Each of this year’s active candidates for sheriff agree the road patrol needs diversity. All want to do better than departing Sheriff Timothy B. Howard has done in hiring minorities.
John Garcia
People are also reading…
“It will be a top priority to increase diversity within the Erie County Sheriff’s Office,” said a campaign aide for John C. Garcia, the Republican endorsed by Howard.
If elected, Garcia will meet with community organizations and students to talk up the benefits of a law enforcement career, and he will aim for a 10% increase in the number of minorities and women taking an exam for applicants, the aide said.
“These goals are attainable,” the Garcia camp said in a statement, “but will take work to generate interest in the law enforcement profession.”
Garcia frequently mentions that he emigrated from Spain with his family when he was 3 years old, and he would be the first Hispanic ever elected Erie County sheriff.
Kimberly Beaty
“No, I do not think that is adequate minority representation,” Kimberly Beaty, the Democratic candidate, said of the road patrol's current makeup.
Like Garcia, she spent most of her law enforcement career with the Buffalo Police Department. It is the county’s most racially diverse agency, but still doesn’t match the city it serves.
The Buffalo force in 2020 was 68% white in a city less than half white. But some agencies – those serving the village of Kenmore, the City of Tonawanda and the village of Depew, for example – were all white in 2020, the most recent year for which statistics were provided to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Countywide, police agencies were 86% white and 87% male, the figures show. But outside Buffalo, police forces in Erie County were 98% white.
"We would see an aggressive recruitment campaign," Beaty said of her effort to bring more racial diversity to the road patrol so that it someday mirrors the county population.
If elected, she would be the first African American and the first woman to serve as Erie County sheriff.
Ted DiNoto
“There are many minority police officers employed by the Buffalo Police Department who elect to work for the city rather than the Erie County Sheriff’s Office because the pay and benefits with court time and overtime is better,” said candidate Ted DiNoto, a detective lieutenant with the Amherst Police Department.
Further, those officers would rather serve the community they grew up in and, DiNoto said, would rather not travel to work in Springville or Sardinia – examples of places where the Sheriff’s Office is the primary agency to respond.
The Republican is running for sheriff on an independent line. He is white, as were 99% of Amherst's sworn officers in 2020.
DiNoto said he will work with community leaders to find candidates interested and suited to become law enforcement officers, and hold preparatory courses for the written exam and the physical fitness exams.
Meanwhile, with the jail population in decline, DiNoto has a plan to transition willing jail deputies and corrections officers to road patrol duties. The main goal is to expand the ranks of the road patrol, but “if there are qualified minority candidates within those divisions, they would be on road patrol upon graduation from the academy,” DiNoto said.
“I can't predict what numbers will be one year into my term,” DiNoto said when asked about the diversity of the force. “What I can tell you is that the program will be professional and effective, and by one year in, we will be well on our way to helping increase the diversity in not only the road patrol, but also the jail, correctional facility and support staff.”
