A court order was issued against a county deputy in a truck damage case

Nov. 2 – Lockport police have issued an arrest warrant for a Niagara County lawmaker accused of intentionally causing damage to a car parked outside a local bar last week.

Lockport Police Chief Steve Abbott confirmed Thursday afternoon that his department has issued an arrest warrant for Niagara District 12 Legislator Will Collins Sr., who is charged with third-degree criminal mischief.

The charge stems from an incident reported to police involving a slashed tire on a truck parked outside the Parking Bar in Lockport last Thursday.

Abbott said police brought the charge based on witness statements and video footage obtained from the scene.

“We would not order an arrest if we didn’t know it was him,” Abbott said.

Abbott said Collins’ attorney, George Moscato, told him the district deputy was traveling out of the area and was expected to turn himself in to police when he returned to Lockport on Tuesday.

Moscato did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the newspaper.

In an interview earlier this week, the owner of the damaged truck, Roy Hamilton, said he filed a report with Lockport police on Monday, days after he claimed Collins was caught on surveillance video intentionally puncturing the front tire on the passenger side of his vehicle. . The car was parked outside the Attitudes bar on West Avenue.

Hamilton said he was inside the bar Thursday afternoon when he and other customers heard a loud noise that he described as a “big bang.”

“I came out and had a flat tire,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton said he was informed of the cameras at the scene and that the footage showed the incident in question. In one video, obtained by the newspaper, a man is seen approaching a pickup truck parked outside the bar and moving near the front area of ​​the passenger side of the vehicle.

In the video, the man can be seen making a move near the tire on that side of the car using what appears to be a knife or some type of tool before the tire appears to be exposed to the sidewall. The video shows the man quickly walking away from the truck and exiting the tire as the tire deflates.

While it is difficult to determine from the footage obtained by the newspaper whether the person who tore off the truck tire in the video was Collins, Hamilton said that the property owners told him that there are other videos that clearly show that it is the county. The legislator who caused the damage. Hamilton added that he and other witnesses saw Collins inside the bar on Thursday and saw him exit before the incident occurred.

Hamilton said he didn’t know why Collins shredded his tire.

As a result of last week’s accident, Hamilton said he spent the better part of Thursday afternoon trying to get a replacement tire and lost work and money as a result of the accident.

Hamilton said he is aware Collins is a county legislator but said it doesn’t make a difference in this case and that he could be “president of the United States” and that doesn’t change the fact that “a mistake is a mistake.”

“I want to hold him accountable for that,” Hamilton said. “He did me wrong. If he’s doing something wrong, he deserves to take responsibility for it, right?”

Collins runs the Collins accounting department in Lockport. The Republican has represented Lockport in the Legislature’s 12th District for 12 years and is chairman of the legislature’s infrastructure committee, vice chairman of the economic development committee, and a member of the management and waste disposal committees.

An employee who answered a call from the Collins Accounting Journal Monday afternoon said the lawmaker was unavailable. Messages left on the office’s answering machine were also not returned.