This is Part 2 of our investigative series on the battle between the Town of Tonawanda Police Chief and the Union. Part 1 Chief Stauffiger vs. The Police Union: Inside Tonawanda’s Fight for Control
A Broken Window on Irene Street
The fight in Tonawanda between the Chief of Police and the Police Union seems to have started over the conduct of officer Bikramjit Singh and what Chief James Stauffiger did about it.
It began with a call on Nov. 1, 2024 to the Town of Tonawanda police. It was a broken window on Irene Street. Criminal mischief.
Officer Bikramjit ‘ Bik’ Singh took the call.
Singh had worn a badge since 2014.
The homeowner who lived in the front apartment had cameras on his house.
He told Officer Singh what happened. He also had video evidence from his security cameras to back up his claims.
He had been sleeping. He woke to the sound of glass breaking. The cameras caught who did it. A woman, a stranger unknown to him. Motive unknown.
But there was more. This might provide a clue.
The owner showed Singh another video from his security camera: A car pulls up slowly. A woman – not the same woman who broke his window -gets out of her car.
She drops a bag in his driveway. She waits. Then she gets out again with an empty plastic bottle.
She picks up the bag, puts the bag in the bottle, shoves it under his porch, and leaves.
The Bag in the Bottle
Confronted with the video, Officer Singh investigates and finds the plastic bottle still there.
His body cam shows him using a knife and cutting the bottle open.
Bikramjit Singh body cam screenshot. #2
There was a bag inside, tied in the corner.
Singh left the bottle on the porch but put the bag he found inside his gloves and took it with him. Singh told the homeowner that a detective would follow up on the crime.
Incident Report
In his police report, Singh wrote about the broken window and the woman who broke it. He did not write about the plastic bottle, the bag inside, what was in it, or the woman who brought it. He wrote his report like it was just a broken window.
It was a curious omission. Not to mention the bag or its suspected contents in his report but yet take the bag with him.
If it was suspected illegal drugs, department regulations required Singh to transport the package to the Erie County police forensic laboratory or to arrange for another officer to do so immediately.
Singh didn’t take any drugs to the lab. Didn’t log them. Didn’t report them. Didn’t report what he did with the bag.
Three days later, the homeowner called town police to inquire when a detective would come as Singh had promised.
The Truth Comes Out
Detective Mark Muscoreil came. He began to investigate. The young woman who lived in the back apartment admitted that the woman who broke the window had meant it as a message – for her, not her landlord. She had been on heroin. She had a baby now. She was trying to quit. But she lapsed. She bought drugs – not heroin but crack cocaine. She owed her money for drugs. She didn’t pay and so the woman came and broke the window.
Police identified and arrested the woman who broke the window. But something was wrong.
This was more than a random broken window. There appeared to be two crimes – both drug-related. If the bag inside the bottle contained drugs – that was a felony crime, not a misdemeanor.
The woman was further questioned. This time by Police Captain William Krier. She admitted that inside the bottle was a bag of crack – meant for her. A $40 rock. Her boyfriend was there, and she did not want him to know. So instead of going out to pick up the bag in the driveway, she told the woman to hide it under the porch.
But why had Singh failed to note it in his report? What happened to the bag?
On November 6 and on November 25, Police Capt. William Krier interviewed Singh. Both times Singh claimed there were no illegal drugs in the bag.
The captain asked. Where is the bag?
Singh said he threw it into the trash in the police station garage.
The Cameras Don’t Lie
But the station had cameras. It is logical. Even the trash is under surveillance. Singh did not throw anything in the trash. That was clear. He lied about disposing of a bag in the police garage.
Krier showed him photos from Singh’s body cam. What was inside the bag – tied in the corner like drug dealers tie their knots?
Singh said there were no drugs, just small, symmetrical pieces of plastic inside. The knot in the corner of the bag meant nothing, he said.
It sounded like a lie.
The woman didn’t just drive there to deliver symmetrical pieces of plastic. The bag was gone. Vanished somewhere between Irene Street and Neverland. Maybe he threw it away in a gas station trash can. Maybe he threw it out the window like an old gum wrapper. Perhaps he kept it.
The Meaning of Nothing
What they do know is this:
Two women came. One broke the window. One brought the drugs. Not garbage. Drugs. Cocaine. Forty dollars’ worth.
Singh said it was plastic. He threw it out because it was nothing. Except nothing doesn’t hide under a porch in a bottle. Nothing doesn’t get tied in a knot. Nothing doesn’t lie in the dark waiting for some fool with a badge to pretend it never existed.
On November 25, Singh was accused of falsely telling Krier he threw something away in a garbage can inside the Police Department garage.
The Weight of a Lie
The lie was small, perhaps. But it was still a lie. And in Tonawanda, a lie — even a small one — under Police Chief James Stauffiger – carries weight. The cameras had seen what they saw. And Singh had said what he said.
Some say Singh committed a minor offense. It was nothing to make such a disturbance over. But it wasn’t nothing to Chief James Stauffiger and as a point of fact it was not nothing to the man in the house on Irene St.
The Man in the House
He had a stranger on his porch. Another came with glass breaking. He called the police. Officer Singh came. And the man gave him what he had — the evidence, the home security video, the story, the bottle.
Singh — for reasons of his own — made the bag inside it vanish. That’s the implication. Not just $40 of drugs gone. When a man hands you proof that his home is under siege — you don’t throw it away. You don’t deep-six it like garbage. Not if you are a policeman. Not if you are a man.
The Things You Carry
He wore the badge. He took the oath. He answered the call. Singh made a choice. And every man lives with the things he chooses.
There is a weight to these things — broken windows, a lost bag tied in a corner, forgotten evidence. They belong to a pattern older than Singh or Tonawanda. A pattern made of small choices and quiet errors stitched together until they make something larger, heavier, and impossible to lift.
Impossible to throw away.
And this was not the first time Singh had done something and got away with it. Chief Stauffiger knew. It happened before he became chief. It was the reason he became chief.
To be continued…
