A lot of details in the story regarding Jose Hernandez-Rossy and the two Buffalo Police officers have been revealed, shifted, and edited since our last story,which cast doubt on the police claim that Hernandez-Rossy had a gun, as police and the mayor had been maintaining for two days.

At our print deadline, we received the news that the state attorney general’s office had opened an investigation, a clear signal that, despite whatever Buffalo officials were claiming, the state also had serious doubts about whether Hernandez-Rossy was armed.

We’ve been critical of how the Buffalo News has covered this story and we will continue to be—that’s one of the roles of an alternative press in a one-newspaper town—but we also recognize that most of what we know comes from their reporting.

We know that Hernandez-Rossy was stopped by police on Sunday for what was originally called a “routine traffic stop.” Yesterday the News reported that officers saw him smoking a “marijuana blunt.” The attorney representing “Chucho” Hernandez-Rossy, Nelson Torre, seized on that bit of information: A drug stop is not the same as a routine traffic stop. “What are we, on our fourth rendition of the facts to account for an unarmed man being shot in the back at least half a block away?” Torre told the News.

And we know that after whatever happened between Hernandez-Rossy and Acquino, Acquino was horrifically injured and believed he had been shot. And, crucially, we know that Hernandez-Rossy was shot in the back by Officer Justin Tedesco as he ran from police. Talk about burying the lede; the single most important revelation in the story was covered up by the headline “Wounded Buffalo cop thought he felt gun in suspect’s pocket.” There had been speculation previously that Hernandez-Rossy was shot in the back from distance, but it hadn’t yet been verified.

The Attorney General making the decision on Tuesday to open an investigation not only signaled that they believed Hernandez-Rossy was unarmed, but it also signaled they had been monitoring the case from the beginning. How the AG and the BPD interact, of course, remains to be seen. While the AG replaces the Erie County DA, the case continues to be jointly investigated by the AG office and the BPD. Enter the politics: This is an election year for Mayor Brown, who is the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party. The AG, of course, is Democrat Eric Schneiderman.

Zooming back in on the investigation, the AG is in the unenviable situation of jointly investigating a tragic incident involving one of Buffalo’s own: the son of a longtime officer and brother of current officer in Joseph Acquino, and Justin Tedesco, of whom it can be said that, whatever the circumstances of his shooting an unarmed man in the back as he fled, he acted in a moment of duress with which not many of us are familiar.

We reached out to the AG’s office on Thursday for details on how this joint investigation would work, as the Buffalo Police announced on Facebook that it was seeking any videos from the public relative to the incident on Garfield Street in Black Rock. What’s the protocol that ensures an investigation is conducted openly between the two bodies, to protect the self-interest of one of those parties? An apparent shortcoming of the Executive Order is that, while the AG replaces a local district attorney in the prosecution, it leaves the local police with jurisdiction to investigate. 

Amy Spitalnick in the AG’s office couldn’t go on record with us, but made assurances that both parties would share information. However a curious event unfolded on the BPD’s Facebook when local attorney Ben Nelson commented on the post, sharing the contact information for the AG’s Buffalo office. The comment was deleted. Nelson commented again. It was deleted again. When we shared this information with Spitalnick, we received no response, but Nelson’s comments reappeared by Friday morning.

(Facebook allows admin privileges to “hide” any comment, but retains the ability for an admin to “unhide” in the future.)

And here’s one more question: In today’s Buffalo News, Derenda declined to comment on the case, referring all questions to the AG “because the state office has taken over the investigation.” Then why is his department actively soliciting evidence on Facebook? Probably because his detectives still have jurisdiction to investigate. So why would he lie?