City of Rochester

News Release

(Sunday, November 1, 2009) The violence of this past week underscores the need for community action demanding individual and family accountability to end the culture of violence and support our police. Rochester has almost 150,000 fewer people than at our population peak yet we have more police officers than at any time in our history. We cannot put a police officer on every street corner, in every establishment and in every yard to end violence, yet many decry the efforts of our law enforcement officers to effectively police for illegal guns. The police are not the problem; they are part of the solution. They need help and community accountability.

This past week we have seen a football referee have most of the bones in his face broken by player who used his helmet to batter him because he didn’t like some of the calls made during the game. A young person shot and killed outside of an apparent house party. A man shot in the head after an altercation outside a popular restaurant and a woman assaulted and robbed by a gang of young people. Interspersed with all this we have seen a rash of shootings and gunfire.

These are examples of a decrepit street culture that does not value human life or the rights of other citizens. It is a culture of street predators, illegal guns and no accountability for personal behavior or actions. This is not about poverty. Poverty does not cause a person to hold a gun to another’s head and execute them in cold blood. Poverty does not cause a person to fire a gun into a crowd of young people with no thought to what could happen to an innocent bystander. These are the actions of individuals who have no conscience or respect for themselves or others.

People carry guns because they can and have no fear of being caught. When the police do pullovers, pat downs and break up street corner gatherings – that is when they find, illegal guns. We hear some voices of the community say that police are overly aggressive. It can’t be both ways. We have made gains. There were a third fewer homicides this year than last and violent crime is down. This recent wave of violence serves to demean our city and cause more people to either move away or decide not to live and work in Rochester. We must and will stop this violence. Our future depends on it.

If any of the shootings mentioned above involved an officer we would have heard a community outcry yet we hear no outrage or call to action on what we have seen this past week. The police will use every tool they can within the limits of the Constitution to stem this latest wave of violence. The community, churches and families need to support our police and should look within themselves and determine what role they should play to stem the violence.

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NEWS MEDIA: For further information please contact Gary Walker at 428-7405.