I can't say I have any answers for you, but maybe a little insight: in late March 2020, a naked man high on PCP aspirated on his vomit and died while wearing a spit hood, which officers placed on him while waiting for an ambulance because he was spitting on them and screaming that he was going to give them covid. There was some outrage at the time but it didn't really explode until post-Floyd, when protestors set cop cars on fire and harassed outdoor diners. Meanwhile, a seemingly botched investigation into the incident and a lot of blame-shifting further exacerbated tensions between the wildly corrupt and incompetent then-mayor and the fairly new chief of police, who eventually resigned. A Police Accountability Board was established, quickly became a den of back-biting and workplace harassment, and has done fuck-all except form a union, which appears to be their primary and perhaps only interest.
The city schools are abysmal, though well-funded, and the only solution progressives are interested in is creating a county-wide school district (because when all the schools are equally shitty, no one will notice). Of course, city public school kids were also locked out of in-person school long after private and suburban students had returned to class. Even the magnet schools don't seem to be working like they did when I was in high school and knew plenty of these kids from work and extra-curriculars.
The increase in car thefts for this period (up 350% in the county, and over 800% in the city) also vastly outpaces the rest of the state, and lends an edge of unwanted excitement to running errands around town (unlicensed fourteen year olds are not good drivers). Obviously it's the gangs and the drugs and the guns, but there's a pervasive sense of lawlessness that makes it feel so hopeless. I think the cops are demoralized, the teachers are demoralized, and the working people in the tough parts of the city are, as always, bearing the worst of everything.
Rochester has a longstanding issue with group/gang-related violence, but in 2020 and 2021 it surged and became more "brazen." Clearly, this trend has continued. According to the county sheriff: "We're all very familiar with the scourge of violence in the city of Rochester, the horrific violence...We have kids with AK-47s and AR-15s doing daytime assassinations utilizing team tactics. We've never seen anything like that."
Then-interim police chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan attributed the uptick in violence to, "availability of firearms, the retention rate of offenders that are impacted by a number of things (such as) early release due to the pandemic, bail, and conflicts between individuals that are retaliatory in nature."
I asked the community over at the Fifth Column if anyone was from Rochester and had additional insights. Someone replied with a detailed response about a viral incident of a man dying in police custody in 2020, pre-george Floyd that may have been a tinderbox in Rochester. I asked if she'd post here so please stay tuned. In the meantime here's more about this story: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/910102490/protests-sparked-by-daniel-prudes-death-escalate-in-rochester-n-y
When things like this happen police pull back, communities erupt and violent criminals take advantage of the disorder. I always try to acknowledge that less than 1% of any community actually engages in violent crime. The problem is when they aren't held accountable they keep doing it again and again. I don't believe in creating a moral panic about super predator youth or an explosion of gangs. Most people aren't out shooting people. Rochester is a city of 200,000 people with 76 homicides (this includes non-firearm) in 2022. Some of these were likely committed by the same people. This is a fraction of the population who has outsized ability to terrorize everyone else if they aren't incapacitated. It sucks because everyone who might resemble the people committing violence are stigmatized when perpetrators aren't held accountable.
I suspected the homicide clearance rate in Rochester was low, which results in retaliatory cycles that never abate, as a small number of repeat violent offenders contribute disproportionately to gun violence in the community. In 2022, your odds of killing someone in Rochester and getting away with it were 50/50. Presently, the police department says they're closing 61% of cases. That's an improvement, but often these stats are "juked" by administrative closure rather than arrest leading to conviction and incarceration, so I take them with a grain of salt. Then, 80% of Rochester homicide victims since 2013 are Black males, with 62% under the age of 24.
Additionally, as recently as 2018, shootings in Rochester were at a 35 year low! This is the story with most cities in the US. Prior to 2020, gun violence/firearm homicides were at historical lows. In 2014 we recorded the fewest murders in the US (per capita) since we started collecting national data on this. Some cities started to experience increases pre-pandemic, but others were very subdued right through 2019 and then the pandemic caused all hell to break loose. Researchers disagree on the proximate causes but changes in policing, people flush with stimmies to buy guns, kids out of school for months upon months, abandoned public places, etc. all contributed to the surge, which continues in places like Rochester but is abating in other cities.
I can't say I have any answers for you, but maybe a little insight: in late March 2020, a naked man high on PCP aspirated on his vomit and died while wearing a spit hood, which officers placed on him while waiting for an ambulance because he was spitting on them and screaming that he was going to give them covid. There was some outrage at the time but it didn't really explode until post-Floyd, when protestors set cop cars on fire and harassed outdoor diners. Meanwhile, a seemingly botched investigation into the incident and a lot of blame-shifting further exacerbated tensions between the wildly corrupt and incompetent then-mayor and the fairly new chief of police, who eventually resigned. A Police Accountability Board was established, quickly became a den of back-biting and workplace harassment, and has done fuck-all except form a union, which appears to be their primary and perhaps only interest.
The city schools are abysmal, though well-funded, and the only solution progressives are interested in is creating a county-wide school district (because when all the schools are equally shitty, no one will notice). Of course, city public school kids were also locked out of in-person school long after private and suburban students had returned to class. Even the magnet schools don't seem to be working like they did when I was in high school and knew plenty of these kids from work and extra-curriculars.
The increase in car thefts for this period (up 350% in the county, and over 800% in the city) also vastly outpaces the rest of the state, and lends an edge of unwanted excitement to running errands around town (unlicensed fourteen year olds are not good drivers). Obviously it's the gangs and the drugs and the guns, but there's a pervasive sense of lawlessness that makes it feel so hopeless. I think the cops are demoralized, the teachers are demoralized, and the working people in the tough parts of the city are, as always, bearing the worst of everything.
Why is Rochester so violent?
Here's what I could find:
Rochester has a longstanding issue with group/gang-related violence, but in 2020 and 2021 it surged and became more "brazen." Clearly, this trend has continued. According to the county sheriff: "We're all very familiar with the scourge of violence in the city of Rochester, the horrific violence...We have kids with AK-47s and AR-15s doing daytime assassinations utilizing team tactics. We've never seen anything like that."
Then-interim police chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan attributed the uptick in violence to, "availability of firearms, the retention rate of offenders that are impacted by a number of things (such as) early release due to the pandemic, bail, and conflicts between individuals that are retaliatory in nature."
https://web.archive.org/web/20231024101635/https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2021/06/30/gun-violence-rochester-ny-surging-2021/5334221001/ (archived)
plus this video: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/videos/news/2021/04/08/rochester-ny-shooting-mead-street-homicide-capt-frank-umbrino-rochester-police/7142461002/
Thanks for responding. I assumed it was gang related.
I asked the community over at the Fifth Column if anyone was from Rochester and had additional insights. Someone replied with a detailed response about a viral incident of a man dying in police custody in 2020, pre-george Floyd that may have been a tinderbox in Rochester. I asked if she'd post here so please stay tuned. In the meantime here's more about this story: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/910102490/protests-sparked-by-daniel-prudes-death-escalate-in-rochester-n-y
When things like this happen police pull back, communities erupt and violent criminals take advantage of the disorder. I always try to acknowledge that less than 1% of any community actually engages in violent crime. The problem is when they aren't held accountable they keep doing it again and again. I don't believe in creating a moral panic about super predator youth or an explosion of gangs. Most people aren't out shooting people. Rochester is a city of 200,000 people with 76 homicides (this includes non-firearm) in 2022. Some of these were likely committed by the same people. This is a fraction of the population who has outsized ability to terrorize everyone else if they aren't incapacitated. It sucks because everyone who might resemble the people committing violence are stigmatized when perpetrators aren't held accountable.
I suspected the homicide clearance rate in Rochester was low, which results in retaliatory cycles that never abate, as a small number of repeat violent offenders contribute disproportionately to gun violence in the community. In 2022, your odds of killing someone in Rochester and getting away with it were 50/50. Presently, the police department says they're closing 61% of cases. That's an improvement, but often these stats are "juked" by administrative closure rather than arrest leading to conviction and incarceration, so I take them with a grain of salt. Then, 80% of Rochester homicide victims since 2013 are Black males, with 62% under the age of 24.
https://data-rpdny.opendata.arcgis.com/pages/homicide-victims
Do any readers live in Rochester who can offer a ground's eye view of this?
Additionally, as recently as 2018, shootings in Rochester were at a 35 year low! This is the story with most cities in the US. Prior to 2020, gun violence/firearm homicides were at historical lows. In 2014 we recorded the fewest murders in the US (per capita) since we started collecting national data on this. Some cities started to experience increases pre-pandemic, but others were very subdued right through 2019 and then the pandemic caused all hell to break loose. Researchers disagree on the proximate causes but changes in policing, people flush with stimmies to buy guns, kids out of school for months upon months, abandoned public places, etc. all contributed to the surge, which continues in places like Rochester but is abating in other cities.