City of Tonawanda Chief of Police Robert Clontz should be disciplined for unauthorized and improper arrests, excessive force by chokehold and poor decisions that escalated an incident involving two teenage brothers in 2022, the state Office of the Attorney General announced Friday following an investigation.
The City of Tonawanda must update its use of force policy to prohibit maneuvers such as chokeholds and neck restraints, the AG added in its report. The 2019 update of Tonawanda’s policy advises officers who use force to inform a supervisor about an airway-blocking maneuver like a chokehold and fill out a report, but does not expressly prohibit the action.
City of Tonawanda Mayor John L. White on Friday afternoon said he would not make any comment until he was able to fully review the Attorney General’s 11-page report. “I 100% support my chief Bob Clontz,” White said, noting the OAG release was a “surprise.”
Spurred by a social media video from the 2022 Canal Fest of the Tonawandas, the AG’s Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office through body camera footage, interviews and documentary evidence reached the conclusion regarding Clontz, a detective lieutenant for the City of Tonawanda Police Department at the time, in his arrest of a 16-year-old and 15-year-old.
The incident on July 20, 2022, began after Clontz alleged that the two brothers – not referenced by name in the report – had been thrown out of Canal Fest by security and were yelling and screaming. Clontz followed the youths across Renaissance Bridge – the border of the City of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda – and when one asked why the detective lieutenant was leaving his district, Clontz said he would arrest them for disorderly conduct, and he pushed the older brother in the back and shoulder.
The younger brother, however, made a sexually explicit remark to Clontz, according to the report. When the older brother began filming the exchange…
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