But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.Genesis 13:13
"Hardly any of the more than 100 Buffalo area priests implicated as child molesters spent so much as one day in jail.
But Buffalo Police had marching orders not to arrest Catholic priests, according to former vice squad Detective Martin Harrington and other retired officers. Instead they alerted the bishop’s office to any illegal activities.
“The department’s unwritten policy was that Catholic priests did not get arrested,” said Harrington, who investigated vice crimes for 17 years and retired in 1995. “.... we had priests we caught with pornography, or masturbating in the city parks, and our orders were to turn them over to the Buffalo Diocese. The diocese would deal with them … but they would not be arrested.”
The policy “only extended to Catholic priests,” Harrington recalled. “If we caught clergy from other religions, we arrested them.”
Harrington’s recollection was echoed by his former vice squad lieutenant, Martin Jurewicz.
“When I joined the vice squad in 1968, the department had just changed its policy on priests. You used to just let them go. Starting around 1968, when you picked up a priest, you had to call the bishop’s office,” recalled Jurewicz, who retired in 2002. “The bishop’s office would send someone to pick up the priest. No arrest was made. The diocese handled these problems.”
The News could find no record of Buffalo Police ever charging a priest with molesting a child in the past 50 years.
The News found only one Buffalo Diocese clergyman in the past 50 years criminally charged with molesting children anywhere in Western New York.
A former Buffalo Police captain, also retired, recalled an incident from the 1970s in South Buffalo, when a man and woman showed up at a police station to accuse a priest of molesting their son. Two detectives were assigned to investigate.
They turned up enough information to lend credence to the parents’ claim, the former captain said, but the priest was not arrested.
“All that happened is that he was transferred immediately to another parish,” said the retired captain, who spoke on the
condition that his name would not be published. “It was a horrible thing. If this happened today, I would make sure it was handled differently. We should have been arresting these people.”
An internal Buffalo Diocese document obtained by The News states that Buffalo Police found the Rev. David Bialkowski in a parked car with a 16-year-old boy twice in one night in December 1994. Police filed no charges and found “no inappropriate activity” was occurring, according to the report, but police did report the incident to the diocese in February 1995.
Last year, Bialkowski was among the former and current priests that the diocese listed as having been “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct with minors."
TheBuffaloNews
But Buffalo Police had marching orders not to arrest Catholic priests, according to former vice squad Detective Martin Harrington and other retired officers. Instead they alerted the bishop’s office to any illegal activities.
“The department’s unwritten policy was that Catholic priests did not get arrested,” said Harrington, who investigated vice crimes for 17 years and retired in 1995. “.... we had priests we caught with pornography, or masturbating in the city parks, and our orders were to turn them over to the Buffalo Diocese. The diocese would deal with them … but they would not be arrested.”
The policy “only extended to Catholic priests,” Harrington recalled. “If we caught clergy from other religions, we arrested them.”
Harrington’s recollection was echoed by his former vice squad lieutenant, Martin Jurewicz.
“When I joined the vice squad in 1968, the department had just changed its policy on priests. You used to just let them go. Starting around 1968, when you picked up a priest, you had to call the bishop’s office,” recalled Jurewicz, who retired in 2002. “The bishop’s office would send someone to pick up the priest. No arrest was made. The diocese handled these problems.”
The News could find no record of Buffalo Police ever charging a priest with molesting a child in the past 50 years.
The News found only one Buffalo Diocese clergyman in the past 50 years criminally charged with molesting children anywhere in Western New York.
A former Buffalo Police captain, also retired, recalled an incident from the 1970s in South Buffalo, when a man and woman showed up at a police station to accuse a priest of molesting their son. Two detectives were assigned to investigate.
They turned up enough information to lend credence to the parents’ claim, the former captain said, but the priest was not arrested.
“All that happened is that he was transferred immediately to another parish,” said the retired captain, who spoke on the
An internal Buffalo Diocese document obtained by The News states that Buffalo Police found the Rev. David Bialkowski in a parked car with a 16-year-old boy twice in one night in December 1994. Police filed no charges and found “no inappropriate activity” was occurring, according to the report, but police did report the incident to the diocese in February 1995.
Last year, Bialkowski was among the former and current priests that the diocese listed as having been “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct with minors."
TheBuffaloNews