BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo's Common Council on Tuesday formally approved a settlement of nearly $1.275 million settlement with the estate of Craig Lehner.
Lehner was a Buffalo Police Lieutenant who, as a member of the police department's underwater recovery team, was killed during a training exercise in October of 2017.
Lehner's family later filed a wrongful death suit against the city and its police department.
"I never got to meet him," said Common Council President Darius Pridgen. "But there were two words I wrote down about him. One was 'dedicated' and the other was 'brave'."
Despite the size of the settlement, the measure was passed without debate, something which Pridgen also made note of.
"I want to thank each of my council colleagues, for in this instance, and especially in this instance, for (acting) more with our hearts in mind rather than our pocketbooks."
Lessons Learned
"Training and equipment," was how Buffalo Police Deputy Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia responded when asked by 2 on Your Side what measures have been taken since Lehner's death to better safeguard dive team members in hopes of avoiding a similar tragedy.
The official incident report concluded Lehner drown after his tether line became snagged on a boulder 25 feet under the water.
It also found that Lehner was not wearing something which might have saved him, but which Gramaglia says divers are now equipped with called a snap shackle.
"That snap shackle is a way that they can pull on that rope and it will disengage and free the diver from that tether," Gramaglia said.
Meanwhile, four years later members of the police dive team still train in the swiftly moving and dangerous waters of the Niagara River near the foot of Ferry Street and not far from where their colleague died.
"We have to maintain our proficiency in those waters," said Gramaglia, noting numerous incidents since Lehner's death in which people and even vehicles have ended up in the water and needed the assistance of the dive team.
"Wherever you are and whatever part of the country you are in, you have to be proficient in what's in your back yard. We still have to go in there and we still have to how to dive in it (the river) when we do," Gramaglia said.
"Lt. Lehner was a dedicated police officer. What happened still weighs in our hearts, he's sorely missed, and we will never forget."
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