I started my week off by writing about a horrific situation involving the Buffalo Public Schools in New York actively hiding abuse, including sexual abuse, from police. I spoke with the detective who unveiled these allegations by phone on Monday night. Detective Richard Hy, aka Angry Cops on YouTube, is a great guy who told me a lot about what happened.
A lot of you read those stories and you were outraged, too.
Any decent person would be. This is not the kind of thing anyone should be fine with. Only evil people would try to downplay what happened, right?
Right?
Well, if that's true, the Buffalo media is just as evil as the school system.
First, let's look at what Newsbusters had to say about some of the local media's attacks on Hy:
The local NBC affiliate, WGRZ took the side of Buffalo Public Schools immediately by first publishing BPP’s response to the allegations over 24-hours before reporting on the allegations themselves. On April 26 at 8:48 p.m., they published this report titled: “BPS says it's 'prepared to vigorously address these untruths' made in online video.” It took them until 11:17 p.m. on April 27 to publish an article titled: “Police officer alleges Buffalo Public Schools abuse cover-up.”
As for the local CBS affiliate, WIVB, they spilled a bunch of ink attacking Hy’s history as a Buffalo Police officer. 227 of their 714-word report (almost 32 percent) were spent on trying to smear Hy rather than grill the school district.
Next, let's look at how the local news tried to downplay the environment, which Hy used to air the allegations, on the Unsubscribe Podcast.
Wait wait wait wait….
— Donut Operator 🍩 (@DonutOperator) April 28, 2025
Instead of focusing on the allegations of a child abuse cover up first, you go after Unsub?
lol. pic.twitter.com/1j0Vim4EPk
Now, these are social media content creators. They're all friends, and Hy is a regular guest on the show. When the podcast went on a live tour, Hy went with them even though he's not a host of the show.
This was a safe space where he could talk about something he's emotional about, and I can't imagine why he wouldn't trust the local media.
Then there was this one:
Maybe this is why @AngryCops went to @UnsubscribeCast to blow the whistle, and not local news. So that when he went to talk about something serious he wasnt immediately cut off to talk about the traffic report. Then told “we’re outta time bye” @WKBW pic.twitter.com/3sB4CHByAI
— The Fat Electrician (@Fat_Electrician) April 29, 2025
Yeah.
That's a thing that happened. Of all the segues in history, that was certainly one of them.
To be fair, not every media outlet covered itself in crap instead of glory. Newsbusters noted one that seemed interested in actually covering the story:
Buffalo-based radio station WBEN went a different path by actually speaking with a parent who sided with Hy. “I am thankful that that Detective [Richard Hy] came forward. The district has a history of covering up. I deal with a lot of special ed parents and we have a lot of problems in Special Ed where students are placed in improper classrooms. This doesn't surprise me one bit,” the station quoted parent Ed Speidel.
Speidel had another story to share about alleged misconduct by BPS: “I know of a mom who reported her young child was assaulted by a substitute teacher and the district will not give the teacher's name, so that the mom can press charges. It's disturbing the lack of transparency that comes out of Buffalo Public Schools.”
Pretty disgusting that this is a thing.
Yet, as Hy told me, this is a systemic issue in Buffalo. The media should be chomping at the bit to make something of this story. They should be tripping over themselves looking into the allegations and seeing what they can find. Instead, they're mostly carrying water for a school system that is credibly accused of covering up sexual assaults against students by an SVU detective in their own police department.
For what it's worth, the school board has said it intends to launch an independent investigation into the allegations. Of course, since they're paying the bills, you can believe it's independent if you want to. If so, let me know, because I've got a bridge to sell you.
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