Shah Alam had been in the Erie County Holding Center since February 2025 after being arrested by Buffalo police. On February 15 last year, he had been out for a walk in his neighborhood and had been using a curtain rod he purchased as a walking stick.
Nearly blind and with no ability to speak English, Shah Alam got lost and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home as she was letting her dog out, according to Macaluso. Shah Alam is completely blind in one eye and can only see with blurry vision for several feet in the other, according to Macaluso.
The woman called police, Macaluso said. When Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, then arrested him, Macaluso said. The officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle, he said.
A spokesperson for Border Patrol, in a statement Wednesday evening, said after agents determined Shah Alam was not supposed to be in their custody, they “offered him a courtesy ride, which he chose to accept to a coffee shop.” That Tim Hortons, the spokesperson said, was “determined to be a warm, safe location near his last known address, rather than be released directly from the Border Patrol station.”
Agents, however, did not notify Macaluso or Shah Alam’s family of his release to the coffee shop. Macaluso previously told Investigative Post he expected Shah Alam to be taken to the ICE detention center in Batavia and that his client would be released from there.
Why would calling a few places and trying something take hours? What argument is being made with these statements?
I saw no indication of that in the article, if you have an alternative source to share, please do so. I wrote previously that I seriously doubted this would’ve been the case. I think this because unless this man was suffering a cognitive impairment or felt he was in danger, he wouldn’t be waving his impromptu cane around. Besides, don’t you think would have been reported in the article if he had been ‘waving’ anything at the woman or her dog?
Now you’re just taking the piss. He didn’t speak the language the police were saying to him, and in case it’s been forgotten - he couldn’t even see who was yelling at him. Let me take a page from your book of disingenuous arguments, “How many [police] do you know [that] speak Rohingya?”
I’m sorry to be rude but I’ve not got an idea why you have interpreted what I’ve written to indicate I’d watch a person die in the cold rather than make a phone call. Equally as perplexing is why you’ve now repeated yourself that it’s not the woman’s fault for calling the police - I specifically wrote in the comment you initially replied to that I didn’t think it was her fault.
It’s tiring to argue semantics. You and I are, I assume, on the same page in that we wish this man wouldn’t have died. I’m not some villain because I wouldn’t tried to communicate with man before putting him in a situation with modern day police.
That you are making excuses for not doing what is done in a normal society: You call the police. That you can’t call the police means you need to fix your police.
It’s like you own a dog that you let off the leash every day and when it bites somebody, you blame the dog. It’s YOUR dog.
Sorry about that. I’m being dogpiled in replies and not replying to the correct ones.