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"Buffalo Cops Ordered Not To Arrest Catholic Priests, Instead Hand Them Over To The Diocese"
Retired police officers from Buffalo, New York are confirming they were given marching orders not to arrest Catholic priests after evidence of sexual misconduct, but instead hand them over to the diocese — special treatment they offered to Catholic priests and no one else. A recent report from Buffalo News sheds light on how the police were ordered to report Catholic clergy's behavior to the diocese instead of arresting them. Former vice squad detective Martin Harrington said, "The department's unwritten policy was that Catholic priests did not get arrested." "I never had any experience with priests who molested children," he continued. "I never heard of any priests molesting children. But we had priests we caught with pornography, or masturbating in the city parks, and our orders were to turn them over to the Buffalo diocese." Harrington retired in 1995, after 17 years with the vice squad. He recalled that the practice of not arresting clergy "only extended to Catholic priests," noting, "If we caught clergy from other religions, we arrested them." Harrington's former vice squad lieutenant, Martin Jurewicz, confirmed Harrington's claim: "When I joined the vice squad in 1968, the department had just changed its policy on priests. You used to just let them go. Starting around 1968, when you picked up a priest, you had to call the bishop's office." A retired police captain spoke anonymously to Buffalo News about an incident in the 1970s. A mother and father had brought forth concerns about the way a parish priest was interacting with their son, and the police informed the diocese, who responded by transferring the priest to a different parish. The officers said the special unwritten policy for priests came to an end after R. Gil Kerlikowske became Buffalo's police commissioner in 1994. Kerlikowske said he didn't remember specifically ending the policy, but did clarify, "When I came into the department as an outsider, I made it clear that we were going to operate on a level playing field with situations like that." "No more special favors to certain groups of people," he added. The Buffalo diocese has been under fire in recent times for mishandling of clerical sex abuse allegations.
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