Minutes were taken by Greta Mosley of the 19WCA. Minutes were to be posted on the old 19wca.org after approval but there were problems with the website and they are slowly repopulating their new website.  I'm posting them here for your convenience.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Public Safety Meeting – 19^th Ward

Location: Rochester Presbyterian Home ----Time: 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

256 Thurston Rd

Rochester, NY 14619

(585) 235-9100

Minutes:

Moderator-John Borek

Neighborhood Service Center Officer-Andy Diprima

Introductions:

Moderator:

1. Question posed to attendees: Do we continue to have meetings on a monthly basis, as needed, or quarterly due to the lack of attendance by the community? (only 5 resident attendees, plus the moderator, scribe and police officer, this brought the total to 8.)

Response: ---

One resident thought that perhaps the 19^th Ward Public Safety meeting should be rolled into the PCIC meeting. Others thought that since they had been in attendance there had been so few people other than themselves that maybe the meeting should be held only when there is a major crisis, and or have the meetings quarterly and when there is a disruption in the community to keep the community informed.

The Officer in attendance relayed to the group that the PCIC meeting had begun to experience low turnout as well.

Themes for the meeting will likely be the driver to raise attendance as well as a notice going to the e-mail of all residents on file with the 19^th Ward Association a week in advance. Possible topics, open air drug sales, quality of life issues, burglaries, safety and code enforcement issues in the neighborhood and how to address them.

Further discussion lead to the idea of not having the 19^th Ward Public Safety Meeting in the summer months. As a result, the next meeting will be Tuesday, September 30, 2014 (Quality of Life Fair)at 6:30 p.m. -7:30 p.m. at the Rochester Presbyterian Home.

2. Question: What is going on with the reorganization of the police within the community?

Moderator: When the administration was looking at the reorganization from the two sections, actually before it changed to two sections there were 7 sections and downtown. When an officer was taken out of one section and put in another section, required that the officer was paid over-time (time and a half). The reorganization 6 years ago was primarily driven by money concerns and trying to save money on reassignment, due to sick days or vacation days occurring. Suddenly, you had to fill in the slots for the officers and pay them time and a half. So, the city was divided into two sections, the East Side and the West Side. Everything has its unforeseen consequences and it was that we completely lost community policing. Whereas before we had officers assigned to the smaller areas of the city, they could get to know a large part of their general area, the residents, and the alleyways. When you give them half the city they don’t get know the area or have a feel for the community in which they are working or its residents. One of the areas of concern throughout the last few city administrations is how do we address the ever increasing cost and have adequate community policing. This is the platform that Mayor Warren ran on; to reorganize the police department to reflect more community policing. So as a result, they looked at the city overall and the downtown section could not be justified in terms of crime and could only be justified in terms of bringing businesses to downtown Rochester and making them feel comfortable. The administration decided that they would use a statistical model where they would look at crimes reported and calls for service and they would divide the community equally for calls for service. As a result, they could keep the downtown section and expanded it to include West Main Street and into the Josiah Neighborhood. Also, as they cut off the West Main Street portion of our quadrant, they discovered that our crime decreased significantly in the last 10 years, that is our burglaries, robberies and assaults (except for the violent drug shooter crimes) and could no longer justify keep us as a separate unit in the Southwest. So, they decided to expand into the U of R by and the Mount Hope Avenue by the hospital. This has caused major discomfort for those residents that are now included with our neighborhood. And, the expansion is actually warranted because part of the way you fight crime and poverty in general is to dilute the concentration of poverty. The police officers now have a more equitable distribution of the calls for service. Every officer now has more middle class areas and this broke down the barrier that the police only serve the areas where there is crime. Our police quadrant now goes from the Airport to Westfall Rd (near Cosco’s). There was not much comment about this from the 19^th ward residents at the reorganization community meeting held a week ago at the Staybridge about this change but there were many comments from those now being included in our police quadrant. This change will restore more community policing. Since the Duffy administration, the emphasis was 100% on calls for service and not community policing, except for the 20 CPO’s dedicated to quality of life issues. Now it will be 80% calls for service and 20% for community related functions for all the police officers this includes foot patrol, youth activities, etc. This is a much smarter model in that it gets police officers not just being in a car going to calls for services. The city will be divided in to 5 sections.

Agenda

1. Report from Neighborhood Service Center-911 Genesee Street-Officers Andy DiMaria-May 1-27th

Notes

This month the crime incidents have involved the firing of gun rounds. There are very few incidents to report.

70 Ringle Street –May 14, 2014-Prohibited use of a weapon at 11:45 p.m.-Officers heard gunshots in the area found one spent and 1 live 45 round and a magazine from a pistol outside of the location. People in the area heard gunshots but no one saw anything –and no shot spotter in the area.

300 Block of Frost Avenue-Reckless Endangerment –at 4:22 p.m. May 17^th Unknown suspect- shot spotter technology detected four rounds in the area. Also received 2 calls for assistance received, as officers pulled up they were advised by the callers that there were 5 – 6 gunshots heard. Found person lying in their bedroom, then her glass shattered. House was shot up. Unknown if this was intentional. No one was hurt.

800 Block of Seward Street on the 17^th-11:46 p.m. Unknown suspect -Officers found a male shot-inside the residence-It was determined that the victim was shot outside-while the car was parked on the street. The unknown suspect approached the car from the passenger side fired several rounds into the vehicle. The victim took off and was hit three (3) times and was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. There were 3 nine millimeter casings and one of the projectiles that were recovered. Victim did go to surgery and is in stable condition. No more information.

360 Thurston Road – May 27, 2014-12:27 a.m. – Assault shooting- One was suspect arrested. Officer on the way to another call, heard gunshots and observed suspect standing on south side of Penhurst Street had a 32 caliber revolver which he had thrown behind a garage. The victim that was shot was dropped off at the hospital by a personal vehicle. Victim was shot in the arm with a non-life threatening injury. It appears that the victim was shot while standing in front of 360 Thurston Road and a friend took him to the hospital. The gentleman with the gun was arrested. Victim was uncooperative. “I don’t know what happened”. The suspect could only be charged with criminal possession of a weapon.

185 Arnett Boulevard – May 27, 2014-9:52 p.m.-Assault shooting-One victim, two suspects male-Officers were right around the corner on Genesee Street and heard shots-when they arrived victim was running away from them, suffering from several gunshot wounds. Initially, the victim was riding bike when he was shot at, lost bike, may have been a shootout and began fleeing on foot, lost his 9 millimeter gun but was unable to continue due to gunshot wounds. He collapsed. Victim had non-life threatening injuries and taken to hospital. Multiple 9 millimeter casings were found from both the suspects and the victim. No real identification of suspects.

Question: Can cameras be used to help end the shooting?

Response: A good camera system is always helpful. Cameras don’t always seal the deal for convictions, only confirm that something happened, there is always the personal nature of things that helps one find out what really happened.

Moderator: Tuesday- September 30, 2014—6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

The September Meeting topic will be Quality of Life-Code violations, animal control, Center for Dispute Settlement (neighborhood disputes), legal from the city to address corner stores. We will have a ten minute presentation and then question and answer immediately following.