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\n ![\"Erie](\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\")
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Despite expanded outreach, new data reveals persistent racial and gender gaps across Erie County police departments, particularly outside Buffalo.<\/p>\n
3. Overall police diversity remains extremely low.<\/p>\n
Excluding the Buffalo Police Department, only 4% of sworn officers across two dozen county police agencies are not white, according to 2025 data from the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services. And only 11% are women.<\/p>\n
Including Buffalo police, the number of nonwhite officers in Erie County grows to 16%. That compares with a nonwhite population of more than a quarter of all residents countywide.<\/p>\n
4. Four police departments remain all white.<\/p>\n
While the number of county police agencies that have no racial diversity has declined, four county police departments still remain all white.<\/p>\n
They include departments in the City of Tonawanda, the towns of Akron and Eden and the Village of Hamburg. The Town of Lancaster lists no nonwhite officers, but one officer of Hispanic ethnicity. Hispanic classification is not considered a race.<\/p>\n
5. Buffalo really is different.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court Judge John T. Curtin changed the recruitment of Buffalo police officers in the 1970s when he issued landmark rulings that made it easier for any minority or female candidate who passed the civil service exam to be considered for a police position.<\/p>\n
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U.S. District Court\u00a0Judge John T. Curtin changed the recruitment of Buffalo police officers in 1978 with a landmark ruling that opened the ranks to more female and minority candidates.<\/p>\n
Derek Gee, News File Photo<\/p>\n
Today, the impact of that decree continues to set Buffalo apart. A total of 36% of its officers are listed as nonwhite, 24% Black and 10% Hispanic. Female officers also exceed the ratio for all other police agencies, with 20% of officers being women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Erie County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the second largest police force in Erie County with 193 officers, employs two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[101359,1611,58297,116818,22270,4032,136,142,138,137,22494,116815,1856,16460,2900,13687,237,206,2296,50,116816,116817,116819],"class_list":["post-279026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-bn-soc","tag-buffalo","tag-buffalo-police-department","tag-civil-service-entrance-examination","tag-data","tag-emergency-services","tag-erie","tag-erie-county","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-exam","tag-imperial-examination","tag-law-enforcement","tag-law-enforcement-agency","tag-legal-action","tag-national-security","tag-new-york","tag-police","tag-police-officer","tag-politics","tag-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-states-census","tag-sheriffs-in-the-united-states","tag-takeaways"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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