University at Buffalo Police will no longer post weekly lists of the incidents and calls to its website, UPD Chief Kim Beaty told The Spectrum in an email.
UPD will continue to publish monthly logs of reported crimes — called Clery reports — on the department’s website, which Beaty said was “in alignment with Clery laws and practices.” Those reports go back to 2021 and contain reports of crimes ranging from petit larceny to murder.
The change coincides with the “redesign” of UPD’s website, which Beaty said had been underway since the start of the spring semester. That redesign made the monthly crime logs for January, February and March unavailable online until late last week. Beaty said UPD made hard copies of the monthly reports available at the department’s headquarters, Bissell Hall.
The weekly incident log — old versions of which can still be viewed on the Wayback Machine — reported the police report number, call type, date, time, location and a short summary for every recorded action taken by UPD. The reports ranged from the mundane — routine premises checks, welfare checks, traffic stops, first aid, elevator entrapment and false fire alarms — to the extraordinary, like homicide, arson, sexual assault and arrests.
Under the Clery Act, public and private higher education institutions are required to report certain crime statistics and information. Under the act, universities are required to report multiple kinds of crimes, including homicide, several forms of sexual assault, hate crimes, robbery, domestic violence, aggravated assault, arson, motor vehicle theft, stalking and more. Higher education institutions must also issue annual reports with the past three years worth of crime data.
The Clery Act also requires campuses to maintain daily crime logs with basic information about crimes reported on campus, though it doesn’t require that those logs be posted online. College police departments must make the most recent 60 days worth of crimes open to inspection during business hours, but it has up to two business days to fulfill requests for older reports and can bar disclosure in cases with an ongoing investigation.
Grant Ashley is the editor in chief and can be reached at grant.ashley@ubspectrum.com
Grant Ashley is the editor in chief of The Spectrum. He's also reported for NPR, WBFO, WIVB and The Buffalo News. He enjoys taking long bike rides, baking with his parents’ ingredients and recreating Bob Ross paintings in crayon. He can be found on the platform formerly known as Twitter at @Grantrashley.
