2024 Law Enforcement Leadership Award Recipient
The Law Enforcement Leadership Award is given to recognize one who has contributed greatly to improving the profession, instituted successful crime prevention programs, provided leadership in closing difficult criminal cases of strong community concern and providing leadership in effort.
Brian Patterson has been an accomplished member of law enforcement, proudly serving the Buffalo community for over 25 years. Inspired by his childhood where service to others was a core value, Brian decided to become a Buffalo police officer to serve the citizens in his community. During his twenty-year police career, he was handpicked to lead the mayor’s security detail serving as the personal driver to the city’s first African American mayor, promoted to police lieutenant in charge of special services, and was appointed to police chief for the department’s business district. As police chief responsible for delivering police services to Buffalo’s city center and its ethnically diverse neighborhoods, he prioritized improving police-community relations and reducing crime by establishing key partnerships, implementing evidence-based strategies, and leading from the front.
Brian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice and a Master of Business Administration degree from Buffalo State University and University at Buffalo respectively. Shortly after retiring from the Buffalo Police Department, he taught criminal justice as a professor of the practice at Medaille College where serial killers, community policing, and introduction to criminal justice were some of his students’ favorite courses. In his first-year of teaching Brian won the coveted professor of the year award in recognition of his teaching style and its added value to the classroom experience.
Currently Brian serves as the police chief for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority Police Department, an 85-member transit police department with jurisdiction over the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Niagara Falls International Airport, light rail, and buses.