By Staff Reporter
BUFFALO — In April, Governor Kathy Hochul came to Buffalo to celebrate a number that no one in City Hall had seen in two decades. Through March, the Buffalo Police Department had recorded 10 shooting incidents with injuries, the fewest since the state began tracking the figure in 2006, and down 84% from the same stretch of 2021.
Six months later, the state’s own data tell a less comfortable story.
Through September, Buffalo police reported 84 shooting incidents that injured or killed someone, up from 74 at the same point last year, an increase of 14%. The number of people struck by bullets rose 20%, from 84 to 101. In Niagara Falls, shooting incidents jumped from eight to 14 and the number of people hit from nine to 15.
Across the 28 police departments in the state’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination program, or GIVE, the trend ran the other way. Shooting incidents fell 16%, from 392 to 329, and the number of people shot fell 13%, according to the monthly GIVE shooting activity report the state Division of Criminal Justice Services issued Oct. 13.
Of the 15 cities and counties the state watches most closely for shootings, Buffalo and Niagara Falls posted by far the largest increases. Strip those two out, and shooting incidents in the rest of that group fell from 278 to 216, a drop of about 22%.
What the state report shows
The DCJS report, built from data police departments submitted as of Oct. 7 and labeled preliminary, counts three things: shooting incidents in which at least one person was hit, the number of people hit, and the number killed. It excludes accidental discharges and justifiable shootings.
On the last measure, Buffalo’s news is better. Twelve people were killed by gunfire in the city through September, down from 15 a year ago and far below the five-year average of 31 for the same months.
The month-by-month figures show where the year turned. Buffalo logged three shooting incidents in January, one in February and six in March. Then the count climbed: 11 in April, 15 in May, 11 in June, 16 in July, 10 in August and 11 in September.
From April through September, Buffalo recorded 74 shooting incidents and 90 shooting victims. In the same six months of 2025, the city recorded 51 incidents and 58 victims. That is an increase of about 45% in incidents and 55% in victims over the period that followed the governor’s visit.
September was especially rough by comparison. The city had 11 shooting incidents with 13 victims, against five incidents and five victims in September 2025.
Niagara Falls is a much smaller city, and small numbers swing hard. But its three gun deaths through September compare with none in the same period of 2025, and its 14 shooting incidents are above its five-year average of 11.
What officials have said
When Ms. Hochul made her April announcement, she credited state spending. “Public safety is my top priority, and these latest numbers show that our investments in law enforcement, community-based prevention programs and proven anti-gun violence strategies are continuing to save lives,” she said, according to her office’s release. “In Buffalo and across our GIVE communities, we are building on that progress and making our neighborhoods safer for all.”
The Fourth of July weekend broke that run. In Buffalo, 11 people between the ages of 13 and 51 were shot during a three-hour period at a street takeover, WBEN reported. In Niagara Falls, Jayla Brown, 19, and Jalin Rios, 22, were killed in separate shootings about two hours apart, both at large street gatherings the city had not sanctioned.
“The bottom line is I’m saddened by it all,” Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino told WBEN at the time. “You can talk about trying to improve the network and family support, but, you still have to stop these individuals from thinking (gun fire and violence) is the right reaction.”
On July 19, the governor announced an extra $1 million for the two cities. Of that, $350,000 went to Erie County and Buffalo and $150,000 to Niagara County and Niagara Falls to expand GIVE work. Another $200,000 went to Buffalo youth programs under the state’s Project RISE, $200,000 to SNUG street outreach and hospital response at Erie County Medical Center and Community Missions of Niagara Frontier, and $100,000 to Buffalo’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, according to the governor’s office.
“Following an uptick in firearm tragedies in Buffalo and Niagara Falls this summer, I am doubling down on these efforts by surging public safety resources to strengthen partnerships that stop violence at its root,” Ms. Hochul said then.
Buffalo Councilmember Zeneta Everhart, who represents the Masten District, welcomed the money for the gun violence office. “While many are focused on the negativity and what our young people are doing wrong, Governor Hochul is standing with me in making sure that we are addressing the root causes of their behavior,” she said in the governor’s release.
How City Hall framed the numbers
On Aug. 25, Mayor Sean Ryan and Police Commissioner Erika Shields held up a different set of comparisons. A city release said Buffalo’s 71 shooting incidents through Aug. 23 were 40% below the five-year average and 46% below the 10-year average, and that the city’s 14 homicides were the lowest in recent memory at that point of the year. Police had made 282 gun arrests and seized 437 firearms.
“We need to take every shooting seriously, and we know there is more work to do,” Mr. Ryan said in the release. “But the numbers tell an important story: shooting incidents, shooting victims and homicides are all substantially below the averages Buffalo has seen in recent years.”
“Our officers are working every day to identify illegal firearms, make arrests and take dangerous weapons out of circulation,” Ms. Shields said.
The release compared shootings only to multiyear averages. It gave a year-over-year figure for overall violent crime, down 8%, but none for shootings. Police told WGRZ the same week that shooting victims were up about 10% from the year before.
Both framings are accurate. Buffalo is far safer from gunfire than it was in 2021 and 2022. But the averages are pulled up by those pandemic-era peak years, and they can hide a reversal that is happening now. The comparison that matters most for a family on the East Side this fall is whether this year is better than last. Through September, for shootings, it is not.
Ms. Shields has pointed to concentrated enforcement as the answer. After the July violence, the department enlarged its downtown detail around Chippewa Street. “We have changed the way we did business about five weeks ago. We increased the size of the detail, and by having enough officers down there, we’ve seen the narrative change. Things have been far more manageable,” she told WGRZ in August.
The FBI’s Buffalo field office joined police in what the agencies called Operation Summer Heat. Police told WKBW that 16 people were shot in 10 incidents in the first half of July, six in six incidents in the second half, and 11 in 10 incidents in August.
“These violent criminals knew we were out there; they’re not stupid,” said Allen D. Davis II, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo office. “If there is a spike in crime, we will surge to that area, and we will do what we can to tamp that down.”
The state figures suggest the summer surge worked while it lasted. September, after the summer push wound down, more than doubled the shooting count from a year earlier.
On the ground in the Perry neighborhood
The past week has shown what those numbers mean on the street.
On Oct. 13, Dominique Mack, 25, was found shot in the chest in the 200 block of Alabama Street and died at the scene, Buffalo police said, according to Buffalo Toronto Public Media. No arrest had been announced as of Monday. On Sunday afternoon, a man drove himself to Erie County Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the torso. Police traced the shooting to the 100 block of South Division Street. “Gun Violence Unit detectives immediately began an investigation,” police said, WGRZ reported.
Near the rebuilt Perry Homes, Buffalo police told WGRZ that a 17-year-old was stabbed within the last three months and that, about a month later, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the head and hand. Jonathan Belton, a father of five who moved to Perry Street in February, said he now limits how long his children spend outside. “It would just be nice to be able to sleep at night and be protected,” he told the station.
Common Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope said the answer goes beyond new buildings. “You can change an entire neighborhood. You can paint, you can build, but there’s something that has to happen systematically as well,” she told WGRZ, calling for a stronger partnership between the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority and its tenants.
BMHA Executive Director Gillian Brown said after the authority’s Oct. 15 board meeting that the agency is focused on lease enforcement and on building community as new residents move into Perry. He told BTPM the authority pays for three full-time community police officers assigned to its properties and expects to add a fourth. “It was a horrible thing what happened to Ms. Mack the other day,” he said. “But at the same time, I don’t think that the blame, such as it is, falls at the feet of the housing authority that built new houses there.”
The money, and who answers for it
The state is spending heavily to bring these numbers down. For the year that began July 1, DCJS awarded $6,077,949 in GIVE funding to agencies in Erie County, including $2,098,912 to the Buffalo Police Department. Niagara County agencies received $2,176,659, including $1,177,700 to the Niagara Falls Police Department. Statewide, GIVE grants total $35,987,983.
GIVE requires participating departments to report their shooting numbers to the state, and DCJS publishes them in a monthly report. Buffalo’s own open-data portal does not make this easy to follow. Its public crime-incident file sorts crimes into categories such as assault, robbery and murder and has no category for shootings.
That leaves residents depending on press events and state PDFs to learn whether gunfire in their neighborhood is rising or falling. It also lets officials pick their comparison year.
The people accountable for the trend are not hard to name. Ms. Shields runs the department and its Gun Violence Unit. Mr. Ryan, as mayor, sets its budget and priorities. In Niagara Falls, Mr. Restaino has called for street-level answers rather than government mandates. “Government edicts? None of that works,” he told WBEN in July. “It needs to happen on the street level.” In Albany, DCJS decides how GIVE money is spent and what results it expects in return.
What could help
The data point to a few questions the city and state could answer quickly.
Report year over year, every month. Buffalo could post the same three numbers it already sends DCJS on its own website each month, with the prior-year comparison next to the multiyear average. The state already does this; the city could put it where residents look.
Explain what changed after March. The jump from 10 incidents in the first quarter to 74 in the next six months is the most important pattern in the data. In the public statements reviewed for this story, police have not said whether the increase is tied to specific groups, disputes, neighborhoods or gatherings.
Keep the summer surge going into fall. July’s second half and August improved when federal and local officers flooded hot spots. September’s rise came after that effort eased.
Plan for large gatherings. In both cities, the deadliest nights of the summer came at unsanctioned street gatherings. A clear plan before the next holiday weekend, built with outreach groups the state is already paying, could prevent a repeat.
Measure what the outreach dollars buy. The state’s July surge sent money to SNUG, Project RISE and Buffalo’s gun violence office. The announcements of that money did not say how its results, such as outreach contacts or conflicts mediated, would be reported to the public.
The Buffalo Chronicle is asking the Buffalo Police Department, the mayor’s office and the Niagara Falls Police Department to explain the year-over-year increase and their plans for the fall and winter. This story will be updated with any response.
Sources: New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Monthly GIVE Shooting Activity Report issued Oct. 13, 2026 (data as of Oct. 7, preliminary); DCJS first-quarter Buffalo shooting data (April 2026); GIVE funding by agency, FY 2026-27; releases from the governor’s office and the City of Buffalo; reporting by WGRZ, WKBW, WBEN and Buffalo Toronto Public Media as linked.
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