By Lou Michel
Buffalo News
Buffalo Police Lt. Gregory Kwiatkowski, already under investigation for a Lancaster bar brawl, has been suspended for attacking a fellow police officer.
Kwiatkowski allegedly grabbed the officer by the neck during a dispute Thursday night in the briefing room of the Northeast District station.
Kwiatkowski, a police source said, was upset over officers requesting transfers out of his platoon.
“He started yelling about transfer requests and said, ‘You come to me first if you want a transfer,’ ” the police source said. “He then looked over at Officer [James] McAndrew and said ‘I heard you requested a transfer.’ The officer said, ‘Not me.’ Kwiatkowski said, ‘Don’t you ever lie to me again.’ He grabbed the officer by the throat and that’s when other officers jumped in and broke it up.”
Kwiatkowski was suspended with pay, according to a department member familiar with the incident.
This is not the first time Kwiatkowski has come under review for allegations involving violence.
Internal Affairs investigators are reviewing his alleged role in a fight on May 7 on the patio at Page’s Grill and Bar on Transit Road in Lancaster following the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association’s annual awards dinner.
Three officers already have been disciplined by the department for their role in the incident.
One of them punched an off-duty Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority officer who had tried to warn the city officers that other patrons were taking cell phone photographs of them. The other Buffalo officer was punished for being at the bar in his uniform.
Officers who are honored at the PBA dinner are unofficially allowed to wear their uniforms because the event is held at a private banquet facility.
Kwiatkowski’s attorney, Andrew P. Fleming, has previously said that his client was not involved in the bar fight and that Kwiatkowski will be proven innocent of any wrongdoing.
In 2008, Officer Cariol Horne was fired following a department hearing for jumping on Kwiatkowski’s back while he was attempting to make an arrest. Horne had unsuccessfully argued at the hearing that she believed Kwiatkowski was choking the person he was attempting to arrest.
Copyright 2010 The Buffalo News