NO DEAL FOR DIRTY COPS: Chief Draws the Line — Singh Pays the Price

This is Part 3 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 Part 2 Chief Stauffiger vs. The Union: The Lie That Started It All

There are towns where the trains run on time and people leave their doors unlocked. Tonawanda, New York, is almost one of those towns. It has trees and neighbors and a sense that nothing truly bad will happen, except it already did.

James Stauffiger was the man they brought in to clean up the mess—old scandals, officers gone sideways, certain things kept off the books. He didn’t smile much. He didn’t soften his voice. He didn’t wink at misconduct.

The police union didn’t like his style. Too hard, they said. He made changes and change hurts.

BLUE BLOOD FEUD!
Ticket Strike Erupts After Cop Gets Busted

One emblem of the change was he charged an officer—for tossing evidence, for lying. Things that used to be whispered away.

The officer was Bikramjit Singh and the chief filed charges against him for misconduct, incompetence, false statements.

The next day, the union stood tall. They didn’t chant or march. They stopped writing tickets. It was the protest not said out loud, but everyone understood. Singh had been hit. Now the men would hit back.

They did not write tickets. They still pulled drivers over. Still flashed lights. But speeders coasted. Red light runners caught green. Stop sign runners waved at fate, and it waved back.   The logs filled with zeroes. It was a rebellion. A way to say: you don’t go after one of us without hearing from all of us.

The town board called it a ticket strike. Not a strike like coal miners or longshoremen, but one just sneaky enough to be illegal under the Taylor Law.

FRIEND OR ENFORCER?
Chief Takes Heat for Charging One of His Own

The union said it wasn’t a strike—it was weather, the call volume. They said the chief and the town board isn’t going to take away officer discretion. There were no quotas.

Then came the website — StauffigerHasToGo.com.

Then came the lawn signs.

The vote of no confidence.

STAUFFIGER STRIKES BACK!
Union Can’t Bully This Chief

Chief Stauffiger had backers too. The town board liked that he cleaned house. Reform isn’t polite.

Fifty officers, the town board said, might face fines. Twice the pay they earned, gone like a week’s paycheck in a divorce settlement.

Still, at the end of the day the match to the kindling was Singh.

SINGHLED OUT!

Singh might’ve walked away with a suspension. But the union made too much noise. Singh resigned before the hearing. Maybe he thought he’d get another badge in another town. But the union’s fight with the chief brought heat. An investigation. Then came potential decertification. Singh likely won’t work as a policeman again.

THE COP, THE CRACK & THE CHIEF
Singh’s Slip-Up Becomes Town Time Bomb

Some say the punishment didn’t fit the crime. That what he did was petty. It was a broken window. Officer Singh took the call. A homeowner with security cameras showed him the footage. One woman smashed the glass. Another woman came and dropped off a plastic bag, tucked in a bottle. She slid it under the porch like she’d done it before.

Singh found the bottle. Cut it open. The bag inside had a knot in the corner.

In the incident report, Singh wrote about the window. But not the second woman, the bottle or the bag. But the body cam saw it. The porch camera saw it. So did the man who lived there, who called to complain about the lack of follow up.

Internal affairs asked Singh what happened to the bag. He said there were no drugs in it. He tossed the bag in the trash at the police garage. But the garage had cameras too. He didn’t throw anything away.

Still, the bag was gone.

When they asked the woman in the back apartment, she told them it was crack. Forty dollars’ worth.

That was the whole thing. A window. A lie. A bag that vanished. But it was only $40.

SINGH’D AND DONE!
Cop Resigns as Chief Stays the Course

But Chief Stauffiger didn’t let it slide. A badge doesn’t give you the right to trash evidence and lie about it.

He filed charges on January 14. On January 15 – the tickets went into decline. But there was more.

Chief Stauffiger knew this wasn’t Singh’s first time. Stauffiger was assistant chief then.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE SWAT
Singh’s Coverup Triggers Former Chief’s Downfall

It happened on the night of January 19, 2019, in Tonawanda. A black SUV had blown through the stop sign. It crossed Englewood Avenue on a diagonal and struck a car broadside.

Two people in the other car were hurt. She was an Uber driver with a passenger in the back seat. His nose was broken.

Her injuries were more serious. An ambulance was called.

Bikramjit Singh was the acting patrol supervisor starting at midnight. The afternoon shift could’ve taken the call. But Singh said no. Midnight would handle it.

He had a reason. In the SUV were Tonawanda police officer Howard Scholl III and his wife, Aimee. Twelve years on the job. A SWAT man. Scholl had just left a SWAT party at Sinatra’s in Kenmore.

In a town like Tonawanda, a SWAT seat was more than a patch on your sleeve. It was a name in a room where names mattered. It’s social currency. It’s a favor bank. It’s a whispered promise that if you scratch my back, I won’t arrest yours.

Singh had asked to be on SWAT. He had not been given the nod. And now Scholl, an off-duty cop in a crash, needed help. He hadleft the SWAT party drunk.

The first officer didn’t arrive for twenty minutes. When Singh finally arrived, Scholl was standing outside the SUV. Aimee stood next to him. She had been drinking too.

Singh knew the rules. He knew when to bend them. There would be no breathalyzer. No blood draw. They conspired to say Aimee was driving – not Howard. Say she made a mistake. Nothing else. Then send them home. A career saved. A favor earned.

The paramedics put the injured Uber driver on a board. Strapped her down. Lifted her into the ambulance. And that’s when she overheard it.

“Aimee was driving,” said someone.

It wasn’t true.

“That guy was driving,” she said.

Singh heard her. Then decided she meant something else. Maybe Scholl moved the car after the crash. Yeah, maybe that’s what she meant.

Moving the conspiracy right along, Singh did not secure the unsafe vehicle. Instead, he let Scholl’s wife—presumably drunk, drive the SUV home with missing headlights, deployed airbags, and a crushed front end.

The Report

Under Singh’s supervision, Officer Joseph Klyczek wrote the accident report. He wrote that Aimee Scholl was the driver. Officer Robert Kubus took statements. He did not report suspected alcohol use.

The Fallout

They left the scene thinking they got away with it. Scholl, confident, told his insurance company his wife had been driving when he made his claim.

Then it began to unravel. Kubus received a message from a paramedic saying Scholl had been the driver, not the wife. He didn’t follow up.

Klyczek didn’t document phone calls confirming Scholl was at the wheel. Instead, he contacted Scholl to let him know the coverup might be exposed.

When the Uber driver got out of the hospital, she went directly to the police. Internal Affairs began to investigate. Police Chief Jerome Uschold began to act. He was in a quandary. He knew it was wrong but he did not want to go against his own men, not against the union.

At the time, the assistant chief, James Stauffiger insisted that Scholl, Singh and the others be fired. The department filed formal violations against them for failure to investigate, failure to report, and failure to supervise. But Chief Ushold chose to punish lightly.

Singh, Klyczek, and Kubus were suspended without pay — four days for Klyczek, two days for Singh and Kubis.

The District Attorney charged Scholl with falsifying business records and insurance fraud – felonies. Aimee Scholl was also charged.

And the town board told Chief Uschold: resign or be fired. He resigned.

NO DEAL FOR DIRTY COPS
Chief Draws the Line — Singh Pays the Price

And into the vacuum stepped James Stauffiger – the man nobody in the union wanted.

He was not like the others. The men began to look sideways at their Chief. They began to wonder if the old days were gone. Not because the Town changed. But the man at the top had.

Singh is gone too. The man who covered for Howard Scholl. The man who dumped crack cocaine like litter did not last under the chief.

A bad cop in a small town will do damage slow. A lazy cop will do damage quiet. A crooked cop will pull the house down.

And the others who stood with Singh, not because he was good but because he was theirs, may get penalized too.

Because the Chief was not theirs. He belonged to something older than unions. Older than politics. He belonged to the old, tired, battered idea that in a small town like Tonawanda, even the cops must tell the truth.

And so it was that the tickets came back, the graphs and charts appeared like winter clouds — and in the middle of it all, the Chief stood against his own men.

But not against his own town.

To be continued…

Frank Parlato

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.

Frank Parlato

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.

See Full Bio