The allegations against the Buffalo Public Schools had a certain degree of credibility from the moment the Unsubscribe Podcast video airing them went live on YouTube. That credibility came from Buffalo Police Department SVU Detective Richard Hy, who is known on social media as AngryCops.
Having followed him for quite a while, I saw these allegations and took them seriously. Far too few did, though none in the podcast's or Hy's communities. I wrote about it. I talked to Hy about it. What I saw was someone who wanted to see change.
Unfortunately, both the schools and the media seem more interested in trying to go after Hy than actually doing some digging.
The thing is, the main hosts of the podcast in question are all very successful YouTubers who have also built or bought into a number of businesses and are...well...let's just say focused.
Like, John Wick would be impressed with the autistic level of focus these guys can devote to a topic.
And they did, starting a crowdsourcing campaign to launch their own investigation, believing they could find solid proof of this happening in short order.
Word to the wise: Never anger four high-profile folks with significant social media savvy and rabid fan bases.
On Sunday, a special episode of the Unsubscribe Podcast dropped, featuring Hy once again, along with a significant amount of discussion about what all they've found.
There was a lot of ground covered in the hour-long video, including a long history of troubles with the Buffalo Public Schools, which includes some pretty shady stuff up to and including a bit discovered at the end of the video regarding allegations of an assistant principal who gets moved around every year due to allegations of sexual impropriety and sexual assault.
Yeah, when I called the Buffalo Public Schools evil in the first video, I had no idea how bad it could get.
But the crux of this video was a case that Hy was familiar with, because he'd investigated it initially. A young girl was reportedly raped. Hy was called in and dug into things and found that no, a sexual assault hadn't happened, that it was a misunderstanding, and the case was then closed.
However, the email he received appeared to be from a school counselor who said they had a written statement from a friend of the alleged victim. This was apparently the first mention of these allegations to anyone else, which Hy says is a significant thing in an investigation. However, the counselor says they were prevented from speaking with Hy and giving him this evidence.
Now, the schools didn't know this wasn't a sexual assault. They had no clue that it was nothing of the sort. They had every reason to believe that one of their students had been raped.
Yet they hid this information just the same.
Then again, based on what was in the statement, I can imagine they wouldn't be thrilled if Hy were made aware.
It seems the friend told a teacher, who then directed the friend to someone in the school's office. That individual first asked if there was proof of this. The friend said there was a video. She said she'd deal with it in the morning.
Coming the morning, though, there didn't seem to be any action. The student then told another teacher, who said, "Give me five minutes," and finally got the ball rolling.
Again, they didn't know that this wasn't a rape. They still sat on important information, probably to shield those who failed to report this to the police--a crime as everyone who works with kids is a mandatory reporter--and then seemingly committed obstruction of justice in the process.
Freaking brilliant.
Then there was a different allegation that about set me off.
A preschool teacher or teacher's aide--Hy was unsure what the person's exact role was--apparently felt that the way to discipline children was to put them in the bathroom with the lights off and their foot against the door so the student couldn't get out.
Sensory deprivation is fine if you do it as a matter of personal choice. Doing this to a four-year-old kid, though, is absolutely insane.
The kicker? This person still works with children in the same school. They're wandering around, supposedly educating Buffalo's children, while being a vile piece of abusive filth.
Podcast co-host Brandon Herrera asked, "Do you have any idea how hard it is to violate the Eighth Amendment rights of a kindergartener?" and it's a fair question. After all, that's precisely what happened, as this is cruel and unusual punishment we'd never see be allowed to be used on our worst offenders, much less small children who just learned how to use a toilet a short time before.
Hy noted that people who wanted their voices heard should reach out to the school board there in Buffalo, as well as the mayor's office.
However, there's something even more important, and that's what needs to happen going forward. He notes that there are issues with the Buffalo Police Department digging into this as they're too close to the matter. An outside party, such as the DA's office, the New York Attorney General's Office, or either the US attorney general or the FBI, needs to start looking. They can take a look, conduct interviews, and deal with what they find.
He's not overly optimistic that anything will come out of the school board's third-party investigation, nor should he be.
Here's the video. If you're bothered by cursing, you should skip this--looking at you, Buffalo local media.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member