Police Mistakenly Use Building For K-9 Training

BUFFALO, NY (WGRZ) -- Inside a home at 83 Prospect Street on Buffalo's lower West Side, you can see that there's new plumbing and new electric and new heating systems.

You'll also see that a number of doors have ripped off their frames.

That happened last Tuesday when police officers from Buffalo and Hamburg broke into the home and used it as a training site for their K-9 dogs.

A few weeks ago, a Buffalo Housing Court judge ordered that the building be boarded up.

When the owner found out, he went to court and had the order rescinded.

That was last Monday.

The next day, last Tuesday, the police and their dogs went in.

"They were in there a couple of hours doing training," says Buffalo Police spokesman Mike DeGeorge. "At the time the officers were in there, they had no idea that the order had been rescinded."

WGRZ: "Do you think the owner is due an apology?"

DeGeorge: "Nobody wants to see this type of situation happen. We certainly feel bad for anybody in that situation. The department will do anything it has to do to make sure it doesn't happen again."

For years the building had been a rooming house. It has been vacant ever since a fire about two years ago.

The new owner, who did not want to be identified, says he spent about $200,000 fixing it up, and was going to re-open it as a rooming house.

Last May, the city said the building had been brought up to code.

"We inspected the exterior and interior and found it was OK and approved the Certificate of Occupancy," said Inspections Commissioner Jim Comerford.

But the Common Council refused to give the owner permission to reopen the building because of objections from neighbors.

"I would not like to see it become a rooming house, the neighborhood is not conducive to that, we've got some small children here and unless they develop it with college students in mind," said Kelly Shaw who lives across the street from the building.

As far as the owner, he now says he's had it with the city, the neighbors and the police and has put the building up for sale.