BUFFALO, NY – Multiple people have been arrested for looting during the deadly snowstorm in the city of Buffalo.
Multiple arrests have been made after looters struck during a powerful blizzard that buried Buffalo, N.Y., over the weekend, authorities said.
“I don’t know how these people can even live with themselves, how they can look at themselves in the mirror. They are the lowest of the low,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said in a Monday press conference also attended by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“Our officers have responded to several reports,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Monday, after photos and videos circulating on social media showed the alleged looting. “We have made a few arrests, we have intervened in some of those. We have assisted at least one location that I’m aware of in getting a store boarded up.”
Photos shared by Andre Brown show a Fasttrac convenience store on Bailey Avenue in Buffalo on Monday. The store is in disarray, and some shelves appear empty, with items open, broken, and strewn across the floor.
Brown said the perpetrators weren’t stealing food and medicine, just the things they wanted. “So these aren’t people in distress — these are people that are taking advantage of a natural disaster and the suffering of many in our community to take what they want from retailers.”
There were also reports of price gouging during the storm, and Hochul reiterated that “price gouging is illegal” and the state will be “going after them.”
“We have the attorney general’s office and our state is prepared to investigate any complaints of price gouging,” Hochul said. “Those who engage in this disgusting practice at a time when people in our community are hurting, when they’re trying so hard to get basic necessities, there’s a scarcity because stores have been closed since Friday, then shame on them.”
Brown said that fewer than 10,000 residents were without power Monday, down from some 20,000. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the blizzard caused at least 25 deaths in Western New York, and “we do expect there will be more.”
Travel bans remained in effect Monday as plowing and recovery efforts continue. Hochul said the National Guard will be enforcing the travel bans and violators “will be ticketed.”
