Is the Restaino Administration Hiding Violent Crime Incident Reports in Niagara Falls from Media?

     For decades, the city of Niagara Falls has struggled with levels of violent and property crime that far outpace state and national norms, a grim reality backed by the city’s own reported statistics. According to the latest available Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), Niagara Falls recorded 237 violent crimes in 2024, translating to a violent crime rate of 501.1 incidents per 100,000 residents, roughly 40% higher than the national rate and significantly above the statewide average. Property crimes in the same year numbered 1,328, yielding a rate of 2,807.8 per 100,000 people, which is nearly 60% higher than the national property crime rate and dwarfing comparable figures from across New York State.

     These troubling figures do not exist in isolation. Long-term comparisons suggest that while some categories of crime have shifted over time, Niagara Falls remains an outlier among cities of similar size. Other independent crime indices consistently rank Niagara Falls among the more dangerous cities in New York State with crime scores and victimization probabilities far above benchmarks for comparable urban centers.

     Residents have felt the effects firsthand: a one-in-200 chance of being victimized by violent crime annually, and a one-in-36 likelihood of falling prey to property crime, are sobering statistics for any community.

     Local reporting has underscored patterns of assaults, thefts, home invasions, and vehicle thefts that continue to disrupt daily life even as official narratives fluctuate. Despite national trends showing modest overall decreases in violent crime in 2024 according to broader FBI figures, local data in Niagara Falls paint a stubbornly persistent picture of disorder and danger.

     Yet, even as these statistics underscore a long-standing public safety crisis, a new controversy has emerged—one that goes beyond raw numbers and into the very heart of civic transparency.

     Not too long ago, local media outlets, including Niagara Action, received upwards of ten police incident reports daily via email each morning from the Niagara Falls Police Department. These reports were the lifeblood of community crime reporting. Journalists would sift through them, identify serious violent incidents, burglaries, home invasions, shootings, and more, and publish what the public needed to know.

     Over time, however, the volume of these reports has dwindled markedly. Incident reports involving assaults, robberies, burglaries, shootings, menacing, and other serious crimes that once appeared reliably each morning seldom appear on a weekly basis in our inbox.

     Today, media outlets are lucky to receive five to ten reports a week, and most of those focus on non-violent minor offenses such as traffic matters, shoplifting, and etc., rather than the more serious offenses that have plagued this city for decades. This shift raises profound questions about whether the Restaino administration’s handling of police data is obscuring the true scope of violent crime in Niagara Falls.

     Did the crimes themselves stop? Unlikely.

Once Niagara Action realized what was happening, we began utilizing police audio for our reporting, which is when we ascertained that there should certainly not be a shortage of police reports.

     Police audio revealed that the Niagara Falls Police Department was withholding police incident reports for burglaries, assaults, home invasions, menacing and a host of other crimes.

     Let’s review what was disseminated by the Niagara Falls Police Department to media outlets in December and January. For transparency, the police department says they have a policy that they cannot disseminate incident reports that are from “domestic incidents” despite the fact that they have grown very accustomed to redacting the ones they do send out.

DECEMBER

-A total of 25 reports were sent out on 9 separate occasions

-21 out of 25 reports were non-violent

-6 traffic

-10 shoplifting

-2 theft

-3 misc.

-4 violent and/or serious crimes

-2 burglary

-1 criminal mischief

-1 assault

JANUARY

-A total of 22 reports were sent out on 8 separate occasions

-18 out of 22 reports were non-violent

-6 traffic

-6 shoplifting

-2 theft

-4 misc.

-4 violent and/or serious crimes

-2 burglary

-1 criminal mischief

-1 menacing

     Niagara Action does not publish all police audio recordings that are generated. We are selective to the ones we believe are most pertinent and have enough information for us to write an article with some supporting detail.

     Below are the titles for 17 articles we published to our website in December with police audio that the Niagara Falls Police Department DID NOT send out a police incident report for. All violent crimes are in bold:

(1) Black Shoplifter Assaults Dollar Tree Employees and Threatens to Blow their Heads Off in Niagara Falls

(2) Niagara Falls Police Find Scared 8-year-old Next to Man who Overdosed Inside Home

(3) Woman Spits on Victim and Attacks Him with Knife During Domestic Dispute

(4) Woman Threatens to Set Neighbor on Fire with Lighter Fluid in Niagara Falls

(5) Stranger Tries to Abduct Child at Niagara Falls Hotel

(6) Black Male Forces US Postal Worker to Hand Over Mailbox Keys in Niagara Falls

(7) Police Pursue Suspects After Targeted Shootings in Downtown Niagara Falls

(8) Neighbors Point Guns at One Another Over Amazon Package in Niagara Falls

(9) 18-year-old Daughter Tries to Slice and Dice Father in Niagara Falls

(10) Woman Calls 911 After Daughter was Shot in Niagara Falls

(11) Father Drops Newborn Child While Attacking Baby Momma With Brass Knuckles in Niagara Falls

(12) Male Threatens Spencer's Employee with Gun During Possible Dildo Dispute in Niagara Falls

(13) Neighbor Calls Police as Son Starts Beating Elderly Father to Death in Niagara Falls

(14) Suspect Breaks Into Ex-girlfriend's Home, Starts Threatening to Kill People with Knife

(15) Boyfriend Threatens to Shoot Woman's Child, Starts Shooting Gun Through Front Door in Niagara Falls

(16) Suspect Holds Knife to Woman's Neck During Domestic Incident in Niagara Falls

(17) Suspect Injects Victim with Unknown Substance During Break-in

     Below are the titles for 15 articles we published to our website in January with police audio that the Niagara Falls Police Department DID NOT send out a police incident report for. All violent crimes are in bold:

(1) Pizza Delivery Guy Robbed at Gunpoint in Niagara Falls, Police Arrest Both Suspects

(2) Police Respond to Apartment Building at 1am for Bald Man Banging on Hallway Wall with Axe

(3) Boy Comes for Revenge and Points Gun at Ex-Girlfriend’s Head in Niagara Falls

(4) Niagara Falls Man Tells police ‘I just shot my mother and sister’

(5) Police Listen Over Phone as Woman and her Daughter are Attacked in Niagara Falls

(6) Black Male Tries to Slice Up White Woman with Machete in Niagara Falls

(7) Landlord Forces Way Into Tenant’s Apartment with Pitchfork in Niagara Falls

(8) Suspects Flee through Woods After Crashing Stolen Vehicle in Snow, Apprehended by Niagara Falls Police

(9) Suspect Beats Victim with Crowbar at Niagara Falls 7-Eleven

(10) Steven Nickerson Allegedly Threatens Woman with Knife During Niagara Falls Domestic

(11) Suspect Threatens to Kill Victim with Machete During Armed Robbery at Niagara Falls Motel

(12) Niagara Falls Police Apprehended Dangerous Robbery Suspect by Force

(13) Cab Driver Witnesses Woman’s Face Destroyed During Niagara Falls Assault

(14) Niagara Falls Officer Struck by Vehicle and Hospitalized, Other Passengers Unresponsive

(15) No Fries for You – Suspected Drunk Driver Wakes Up in McDonald’s Drive-Thru Line in Niagara Falls

     So altogether, out of these 32 incidents – most of which were violent – the Niagara Falls Police Department did not send out a single police report.

     Niagara Action sent an email to City Administrator Anthony Restaino on February 12th asking the following questions:

1. Is Mayor Restaino aware that the Niagara Falls Police Department is releasing only a limited number of police incident reports to the media? When did he become aware of this practice?

2. Why are the majority of reports being shared with the press non-violent in nature, while reports involving violent offenses appear to be largely absent?

3. Who specifically ordered or approved the reduction in the number of police incident reports released to media outlets — Mayor Restaino, the Police Chief, or another city official?

4. Was there a formal directive, written or verbal, instructing the department to limit the release of certain categories of crime reports? If so, when was it issued and by whom?

5. Is the City of Niagara Falls intentionally limiting the release of violent crime reports to shape public perception of crime levels?

6. If the City denies limiting transparency, how does it explain the discrepancy between police radio traffic and the small number of official incident reports being made available to the public?

7. Does the administration believe withholding or selectively releasing incident reports is consistent with its stated commitment to transparency and public accountability?

     "I ask that your answers be given by Saturday, February 14th, 2026, at 9am. If you would rather give a statement instead of answering the questions, you are free to do so and we will include the quote in full," the email read.

     The Restaino administration refused to answer all seven of the questions, nor did they provide a statement.

     This is not the first time that the Restaino administration has been embroiled in an issue with police incident reports.

     Back in 2021, Mayor Restaino and his administration stopped a decades-old practice of released police incident reports to the media. Here is an excerpt of an article published by the Niagara Falls Reporter dated January 30th, 2021:

     “Niagara Falls Mayor Robert M. Restaino released his most recent city update on Friday, January 29th, 2021, which included a minute and a half segment on police incident reports. The City of Niagara Falls, and Restaino in particular, have been under fire by a variety of media outlets over the past two weeks after it was initially reported by the Niagara Reporter that the city had ended a decades old practice of disseminating police incident reports to media outlets each day. Restaino, in a statement earlier this week, stated that he made the decision to protect victims. Media outlets were quick to point out that this decision was made during a record-setting year for the Cataract City who saw 18 homicides in 2020.”

     The numbers tell one story while radio traffic tells another. In just two months, Niagara Action documented 32 separate incidents – most of them violent – that never generated a publicly disseminated police incident report, despite being serious enough to require law enforcement response.

     During that same period, the Niagara Falls Police Department distributed only 47 total reports combined for December and January with the overwhelming majority involving traffic stops, shoplifting, and minor thefts.

     The pattern is unmistakable: while police audio reveals assaults, armed robberies, shootings, menacing, domestic violence, and home invasions, the official paper trail provided to the media paints a far calmer picture. When transparency narrows while crime remains active, residents are left to wonder what narrative is being curated—and by whom.

     The Restaino administration’s refusal to answer seven direct questions about this practice only deepens concern. Transparency is not selective and public safety is not public relations. In a city that continues to rank above state and national crime averages, the free flow of information is not a luxury—it is a necessity.

ALL ARTICLES WITH POLICE AUDIO CAN BE FOUND ON THE NEWS TAB UNDER CRIME

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Is the Restaino Administration Hiding Violent Crime Incident Reports in Niagara Falls from Media?