Hate Crimes

First, a Buffalo woman is stabbed in the eye on Dec. 31 in an alleged hate crime outside a lesbian bar, then, the very same night, two women attack a man they accuse of being gay at the Galleria Mall. People, seriously. Can’t we all just get along?

Meaningless Civic Awards

Mayor Byron Brown had two conditions for Terrell Owens’ receiving the key to the city last May. With the merciful end to the Bills season on Jan. 3, let’s see how Owens lived up. Score 10 TDs: Nope. Bills make playoffs: Not quite. Time to get that key back.

Rude Awakenings

Hospitalized after passing out at a press conference last week, it wasn’t until Jan. 3 that former Buffalo police commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson says he learned (by way of the TV news) that he had been fired by the mayor three days earlier.

Mike Cejka

The WIVB meteorologist returned to work Jan. 4 (albeit not on the air) after a bizarre Dec. 14 car chase with police that ended in guns being drawn. A Lockport man has filed trespassing charges against Cejka stemming from the wild night.

House Cleaning

Speaking of firings, after missing the playoffs for the 10th consecutive season and reaching the heights of ineptitude, the Buffalo Bills dropped the hammer on Jan. 4 and released their entire coaching staff. Time to start updating those resumes, guys.

Approximate number of hours into the new year before Buffalo registered its first homicide of 2010. While the Jan. 1 East Side shooting of 17-year-old Aaron James may seem like a quick start to violence (2009’s first homicide didn’t occur until Jan. 8), in both 2007 and 2008 police reports indicate it only took four hours for the first blood of the new year to be shed.