ECMC Contributes $10,000 to Buffalo Gun Buyback Program

Mayor, CEO urge other corporations to raise money to help keep illegal guns off the street

Buffalo, NY - February 16, 2007 Erie County Medical Center, on behalf of its board of directors, administration and medical staff, today donated $10,000 to the City of Buffalo to help fund Mayor Byron W. Brown's planned gun buyback program.

Doctors, nurses and staff at ECMC know too well the damage inflicted by criminal and careless use of illegal firearms. The regional trauma center's staff believes that police agencies in Western New York do a superb job confiscating illegal guns and otherwise limiting their availability. But the hospital's leaders want to do everything they can to help police get illegal guns off the city's streets to make citizens safer, and this is one way to do that.

"On behalf of the residents of Buffalo, I accept this generous check, which I know will help begin my administration's commitment to successfully launch a gun buyback effort," said Mayor Brown. "Our residents deserve to live without fear of gun violence, safe in their homes and on our streets. This gracious check will help us reach that goal."

Mayor Brown and ECMC CEO Michael A. Young urged other Buffalo corporations to join the medical center and the city in this proactive effort.

"ECMC's dedicated trauma teams work tirelessly on behalf of gunshot victims almost every day," Young said, "so we know intimately the damage these illegal weapons inflict. Not only does the specific victim suffer, but families and neighborhoods are terrorized by those wielding these guns. Fewer illegal guns will save lives and protect communities."

Mayor Brown and Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson will soon release details of how the gun buyback program will operate and when it will start.