$4.65 Million Settlement After West Seneca Police Shot Unarmed Buffalo Man Behind the Ear

On April 25, 2010, Jeffrey J. Edwards drove to the West Seneca home of his friend Jerome Brylski to drop off food. What Edwards did not know was that West Seneca police had Brylski's house under surveillance. Officers considered Brylski unstable and believed he had threatened to shoot anyone who came to his door. Edwards, unarmed and unaware of any danger, was caught in the middle of that police response.

When officers opened fire, one bullet struck Edwards behind the left ear. He crawled out of his car with his hands outstretched, but the damage was done. The shot left Edwards paralyzed from the neck down. He spent the next four years as a quadriplegic before dying of heart failure in June 2014 at age 46.

Before his death, Edwards filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Town of West Seneca. Richard Weisbeck, a partner at Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria in Buffalo, represented Edwards and later his estate. The case went through multiple rounds of mediation.

In February 2016, the town's insurers agreed to pay $4.65 million to resolve the lawsuit. Town officials stressed that the payment came entirely from insurance funds, with no direct draw on taxpayer money. After attorneys' fees and reimbursements to Medicaid and Medicare for Edwards's long-term medical care, the estate netted close to $2.4 million.

The WIVB News 4 and Buffalo News both reported the settlement in February 2016, confirming Weisbeck's role and the insurance-funded resolution.