UPDATE: Stachowski has been placed on administrative leave according to Erie County jail superintendent Thomas Diina “pending the conclusion of the investigation”.
This is Erie County Corrections Officer Jason Stachowski, who considered taking a bat to a woman protester in South Buffalo this past weekend
Records show a Jason C. Stachowski is employed as a Corrections officer with the Erie County Sheriff’s Department.
As apparent by Mr. Stachowki’s t-shirt, Stachowski came looking for trouble and found some as calls for his firing have gone viral since the incident.
A search of Stachowski also brings up a Buffalo news article from 1996 which names Stachowski as the drive of a triple fatal car accident killing three of his family members on a trip back from their US Marine Corp graduation in Parris Island.
Ms. Kellar, 43, and Mrs. Ball, 64, died as a result of injuries suffered Aug. 21, 1993, when a rental van they were riding in crashed on I-79 near Pittsburgh. Mrs. Ball’s granddaughter, Melissa Ball, 16, died the next day.
Philip J. O’Shea Jr., chief attorney for both families, said insurance carriers for Payless Car Rental of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and its Buffalo franchisee, Advantage Car Rental of Genesee Street, will make cash payments totaling almost $1.8 million to the two families within the next two weeks.
O’Shea said the settlement spared the families the “emotional trauma of protracted litigation.”
He said the bulk of the cash payments and long-term annuities will go to Ms. Kellar’s two sons, Michael Kellar, 23, and William Kellar, 25, both of Buffalo.
He explained that her sons will receive the bulk of the money because Mrs. Ball’s grandson, Jason C. Stachowski, was driving the rented van and may have fallen asleep at the wheel before the vehicle ran off the road and flipped several times
The three victims and other members of the families had gone to Parris Island, S.C., for the Marine boot camp graduation of Michael Kellar and Jason Stachowski, O’Shea said.
Mrs. Ball was killed instantly when she was ejected from the front passenger seat and Ms. Kellar was in a coma until her death on Dec. 20, 1994.
There has been no word yet from the Erie County Sheriff’s office regarding Mr. Stachowski or his employment status with the Erie County Sheriff’s Department.
