Published: December 04, 2008 12:15 am      

OFFICER ARRESTED: Warme turned shield into sword

On the streets of the Falls, police Officer Ryan Warme was well known.

“Officer Ryan, Officer Ryan,” the street corner gangstas would say to investigators looking into Warme’s activities both on and off duty. “He cool, he cool.”

Apparently Warme was too cool for his own good.

“He’s real cool now,” Falls Police Superintendent John Chella said late Wednesday afternoon. “He’s on ice.”

Warme was locked up Tuesday night by Falls cops and federal law enforcement agents who said he used his badge as a sword not a shield and committed crimes instead of stopping them.

In the end he was taken down by city police like any other criminal, on his knees, with his hands behind his head, at gunpoint.

“He showed no emotion,” Falls Narcotics Division Captain Morris Shamrock said. “It was like it was no big deal.”

The investigative file on Warme is big though. The book on the three-year police veteran is actually two large-sized spiral ring notebooks jammed with hundreds of pages of documents, including notes from interviews with between 40 and 50 people who had encountered the accused rogue cop out on the streets.

“That could be an investigation of 40 individuals,” Shamrock said. “But that’s just one individual.”

In August 2006, investigators got their first inkling that something might not be right with Ryan. It was a complaint from a woman who said Warme had forced her to have anal sex.

“That was investigated, “ Chella said, “but there was confusion over whether she was a victim or a willing participant.”

After consulting with then-Niagara County District Attorney Matthew J. Murphy III, police and prosecutors decided not to file any charges.

“There was a credibility issue,” Chella said.

Then, in 2007, more charges began to surface involving sexual abuse, drug abuse and drug dealing.

The trail went cold from January of this year through April, while Warme was away in the military reserves. When he returned, Narcotics Division Lt. Kelly Rizzo began building his case as more information about Warme came to light.

Because many of those involved in Warme’s crimes were also involved in criminal activity, Rizzo had to seek them out and build their trust. Narcotics detectives put the word out to their street informants that they were investigating Warme and needed to know what he was up to.

“Every piece of information we could get, no matter how far fetched, was investigated,” Shamrock said. “(Rizzo) explained that we were here to make a difference. We were here to make a change and we need you to help us out.”

Shamrock said most of those who contributed to the probe of Warme didn’t voluntarily waltz into police headquarters and readily volunteer what they knew. Rizzo, assisted by other detectives and Roving Anti-Crime Unit officers, scoured the streets at all hours of the day and night.

“A lot of people didn’t believe me,” Rizzo said. “They wouldn’t tell me what they knew and what happened to them. They’d tell me what they heard from someone else, but not what they knew.”

Finally though, by September, Rizzo’s dogged police work was paying off. People were talking and what they were telling Rizzo, other Falls police detectives and federal investigators who had joined the probe was disturbing.

“It was like a run-away train,” Rizzo said.

In addition to sexual assaults on two women and buying cocaine from a major dealer as often as three or four times a week, evidence emerged that Warme was shaking down dealers and prostitutes. Warme reportedly would stop suspects who had drugs and either take their stash and not charge them or take a portion of the drugs and charge a lesser crime.

“It was difficult because people thought we were trying to set them up,” Rizzo said. “If you asked them if Warme ‘stopped you and took a gun and didn’t charge you’, they thought if they admitted that you’d arrest them for the gun.”

Concerned over Warme’s behavior, Chella had him assigned as a booking officer in the jail when he returned from reserve duty to limit his contact with the public.

“By August he wasn’t allowed out of booking,” Chella said. “We started to tighten the noose. We took away his weapon (officers in the jail do not carry handguns) and suspended him from secondary (police-related) employment.”

Then investigators discovered it wasn’t just the public that Warme was victimizing.

“This guy had no boundaries,” Shamrock said. “He put people’s lives at risk.”

According to investigators, Warme would routinely relay sensitive police information to drug dealers and others.

“He would put out which (patrol) officers were working where and who they were looking for,” Shamrock said. “He would alert (drug dealers) if he saw the Emergency Response Team assembling and tell them a raid was coming and to be on the look-out.”

Investigators said even when Warme was off the street and working in the jail, he would call fellow officers in their patrol cars, on their cell phones, to find out what they were doing and pass that information on.

On one occasion, narcotics detectives were looking for a dealer who was also wanted on an assault warrant. The detectives were trying to follow their suspect in an brand new and unknown undercover vehicle.

“We didn’t have that vehicle on the street 36 hours,” Shamrock said, “and he put out what (the detectives) were driving, where they were driving and when they made (the arrest), the suspect had cocaine and a .40-caliber handgun.”

On Nov. 3, Warme was placed on paid administrative leave.

“He carries a badge, he carries a gun, he has the power of arrest,” Chella said. “We tried to act quickly to take those away.”

Both Chella and Shamrock said they had known Warme’s father, Gordon, a retired police captain and former chief of detectives, for more than 30 years. While Warme is accused of trying to intimidate victims with his father’s former position, police brass said there should be no connection between father and son.

“In no way should the actions of Ryan Warme reflect on Capt. Warme,” Chella said. “I would hope the public would not fault the father for the sins of the son.”