Statement of Buffalo Police Commissioner William H. Schneider, October 16, 1963
Buffalo's police commissioner told the Senate subcommittee that the "so-called syndicate" was not responsible for all crime in Buffalo, that police had not been able to secure evidence of a criminal conspiracy that could be presented in court, and that the Buffalo chart, Exhibit 64, was accurate to the best of the department's knowledge.
- Date
- 1963-10-16
- Kind
- hearing
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Rights
- A work of the United States Senate, printed by the Government Printing Office. Public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The page image stored here was rendered from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service scan of the printed hearings.
Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Part 2, printed pages 578 to 584 (NCJRS PDF pages 645 to 654). Buffalo was the last city heard, on October 16, 1963. Senator Javits introduced the witnesses: William H. Schneider, commissioner of police of Buffalo since October 1, 1963; Michael A. Amico, who said he headed the department’s Criminal Intelligence Bureau; and Detective Sergeant Samuel Giambrone. The stored image is printed page 579.
Schneider read his statement. “I want to make it clear that this so-called syndicate of organized crime is not responsible for all the crimes being committed in the Buffalo area,” he said. “There are criminals of all ethnic groups operating in the Buffalo area.” He said organized crime “seems to be concerned primarily with the operations of gambling, vice, narcotics, labor, and extortion rackets,” and that the police were “attempting, without too much success, to secure evidence regarding various criminal activities concerning the top echelon.” Pressed by Senator Javits, he said: “we have not been able to secure evidence of a criminal conspiracy, for instance, or of any other crime that they are engaged in, exactly well enough to present it in court at this particular time.” He asked for federal wiretapping legislation “with proper safeguards.”
The chairman received the Buffalo chart as Exhibit 64. Schneider said Amico and Giambrone had prepared it and that “The chart is accurate, and it represents our knowledge to the best of our ability of the setup of the syndicated crime in the Buffalo area.” Committee counsel O’Donnell said the chart reflected Magaddino as boss “not only of the Buffalo area, but the entire western New York area, and Ohio Valley.”
This is a police commissioner’s sworn statement. The chart it introduced is a police exhibit, and its labels are not findings of the subcommittee or of a court. This archive does not copy any of them onto a family page.
