Saw car parked outside her
boyfriend’s home
By Lou Michel
Buffalo Police Officer Ann
Vanyo, while on duty about two years ago, allegedly threatened to kill a woman
she thought was making moves on her boyfriend, who is also a Buffalo police officer.
An independent hearing officer
who presided over the 42-year-old Vanyo’s July 23 disciplinary hearing ruled
last week there were grounds for her dismissal and fired her.
The decision to fire Vanyo is
extremely unusual, according to police and former PBA officials.
“It’s extremely rare, no,
almost unheard of, for an arbitrator to dismiss a police officer. There is a
much heavier burden of proof on the employer to justify proving an egregious
act or acts for termination,” a former police union representative said.
PBA President Kevin Kennedy
said protocol for the disciplinary procedure was followed.
“You hate to see someone lose
their job, but we followed what was agreed to,” Kennedy said.
Police sources say Vanyo
allegedly left her patrol sector and drove to a bar where the woman worked.
When she found that the woman was not there, she allegedly went to the woman’s
home but the woman did not come out of the house. Vanyo then allegedly called
the woman on the phone and made the threat.
When department officials
learned of her actions, she was brought up on departmental charges for that and
other alleged violations of department policies.
An agreement reached last
spring between the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association and City of Buffalo
calls for accepting the decision of hearing officers in disciplinarian matters
as final and binding.
Police Commissioner Daniel
Derenda declined to comment because it is a personnel matter, and he is legally
barred from publicly addressing it.
Vanyo, a 17-year department
veteran, expressed outrage over the allegations against her, saying she never
threatened the woman. She conceded that she did phone the woman.
“It didn’t happen. There was
never any threat,” she said. “Commissioner Dan Derenda doesn’t like me. I don’t
know why Dan Derenda is trying to ruin my life.”
In outlining a broader scenario
of why Vanyo was canned, attorney Steven M. Cohen, who met with her Saturday,
said she has become a target of the city for her willingness to corroborate
claims that his client, James Mazzariello, was a victim of corrupt cops
demanding payments from Mazzariello’s tow truck operators and other operators,
rather than the instigators of the payoffs.
“Ann Vanyo was oppressed and
abused because of her willingness to tell the truth about the shakedowns. She
wasn’t happy about talking about fellow officers, but if subpoenaed, she would
tell the truth,” Cohen said.
Mazzariello, who operates Jim
Mazz Auto in Lovejoy, was federally indicted for bribing police officers in
order to tow vehicles in the city, all of which occurred at around the same
time Vanyo was willing to speak out, the attorney said.
Mazzariello is also suing the
city for its failure to end the corruption he and Cohen say they have been
complaining about to city officials as far back as 2005.
In explaining Vanyo’s contact
with the woman she believed was trying to steal her boyfriend, Cohen said,
Vanyo was distraught when she spotted the woman’s car parked outside her
boyfriend’s home in the middle of the night a couple of years ago.
He says Vanyo did later call
her, asking why she was at the boyfriend’s home, but never threatened the woman.
The woman later reported
Vanyo’s call to police but never mentioned any threat. However, in a subsequent
meeting with an Internal Affairs investigator, the woman claimed Vanyo
threatened to kill her – a point Cohen says is odd because it would stand to
reason she would have mentioned the death threat in the initial complaint to
police.
Cohen says if there was any
validity to the death threat, Vanyo would have been arrested, “and that never
happened.”
And while Derenda says he
cannot comment on the personnel case, he has repeatedly said that he will not
tolerate corrupt police officers and has worked with federal prosecutors in
pursing multiple investigations to remove them from the police force.
Cohen added that he has
strongly urged Vanyo to sue the city for reinstatement of her job. Vanyo said
she has every intention of regaining her job “because it is my life.”
She said two previous
arbitration rulings ordered the city to return her to work, but the city
ignored the orders.
Yet Vanyo had a history of trouble
that was also taken into consideration, police brass said. It included previous
allegations of violence, including a fistfight with a female lieutenant several
years ago, according to police familiar with her tenure.
“This was long overdue,” a police
official said of the firing.
An officer who was Vanyo’s
patrol car partner at one time said, “She had it coming to her.”
But Vanyo had been widely
publicized for her strong police work and arrests of armed suspects over the
years.
“She had really good instincts
as a police officer,” the former patrol partner said, “but unfortunately she
would often bring other personal problems to work with her.”
Hearing officer Jeffrey M.
Selchick, who is an attorney, in his ruling, found Vanyo guilty of failing to
follow departmental rules under “devotion to duty”; violating requirements
under “reporting for duty”; and violating rules pertaining to “conduct” of an
officer.
Before she was fired, Vanyo had
previously filed complaints with the state claiming the department had
discriminated against her. That case is pending before the state Division of
Human Rights.
Concerns police officials have
had over the years regarding Vanyo’s behavior include:
• A 2009 incident in which
Lancaster police charged her with harassment after she allegedly chased and
punched a process server. That case was later adjourned in contemplation of
dismissal.
• A 2010 fight with her
supervising lieutenant that led to disciplinary action. Vanyo was suspended
with pay after the altercation. Vanyo was accused of biting the lieutenant in
the
hand. In response, Vanyo
claimed the lieutenant punched her in the mouth.
Vanyo returned to work and sued
the city in U.S. District Court. The case was settled in 2012 with the city
paying Vanyo $6,000. As part of the agreement, the city and the lieutenant did
not admit any guilt.
• A more recent incident
happened at the Erie County Holding Center alleging Vanyo grabbed a female
prisoner by the neck.
Vanyo’s name also surfaced in a
bizarre public departmental disciplinary trial in 2007 against former Buffalo
Police Officer Cariol J. Horne, who was fired in 2008. Horne was brought up on
charges for jumping on the back of another police officer who was attempting to
make an arrest.
Horne said she took the action
because she thought the officer was choking the suspect. Vanyo pulled Horne off
the officer’s back.
Horne, fired one year shy of
being able to collect a half-pay pension at 20 years, has asked the Common
Council to grant her pension benefits. Council members are reviewing Horne’s
request in light of a recent indictment of police brutality in an unrelated
incident brought against the officer whom Horne had leaped on top of. That
officer is now retired.
Vanyo vows to continue to fight
her dismissal.
“They’ve got everything wrong.
Ask any of my supervisors and they will tell you I was a great worker,” she
said. “I love my job. It’s my life and I am going to get it back.
