I was born in Massachusetts but raised in a suburb of Rochester, New York. Riots have returned to Rochester and taken a toll on the people and the police department. A city run by Democrat Mayors for 58 years minus a three-year hiccup from 1970 to 1973. In other words, whatever this is, Democrats own it.
Related: Which REPUBLICAN Led City is Having the Same BLM/Antifa Riots as the Democrats?
What did happen?
A man died in police custody. The video of his apprehension is not flattering. Its release sparked violent protests and civil unrest (riots). The mayor, Lovely Warren, did what any Democrat mayor would do. She “announced a series of reforms, and (Chief L’Ron) Singletary — along with the rest of the Rochester Police Department’s command staff — opted to retire.”
[Mayor] Warren announced Sunday that the city would be moving its crisis-intervention department from under the auspices of the police department to its Department of Recreation and Youth Services. Rochester also will double its number of mental-health workers, the mayor pledged.
The deceased, Daniel Prude, was having a mental health incident, so it truly is a mental health issue. And unlike many other Democrat mayors sitting atop decades of Democrat control, Mayor Lovely is owning this.
The Police chief and his command staff were staying on until the end of September, but that has not put the riots to rest, so Mayer Lovely Warren fired him. I assume that’s a show termination to try and put some good PR on a path to ending the violence.
“I have apologized to the Prude family and this community for the failures that happened along the way, including my own,” Warren said. “As mayor, I own these failures.”
That’s refreshing, but it’s not enough. The problem is not one Democrat mayor and their POC police chief. Endless decades of one-party rule have done to Rochester what appears to happen in Democrat-run cities all across America.
Rochester ranks as one of the least safe cities in the nation. Property and violent crime are way above the national average. The riots won’t help, nor will anything BLM or anyone on the left is after.
And the problem is systemic, but it’s not racism, it’s Democrats. And until such time as that problem is resolved – and groups like BLM are pushing harder left – anything anyone says or does is just rearranging deck chairs on another Titanic, which appears to be how things got this way in the first place.
That and, yes, there are reports that someone is flying BLM and Antifa protesters to Rochester as well. That needs to stop, and the Feds had best be on it. Like many riots in American cities, locals claim to not know many of the people they see “protesting” alongside them.
