One city ‘ready to explode’ as U.S. murder rates surge in pandemic

By Nathan Layne

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Reuters) – Elijah Ross stood watch last Friday by the candles, flowers, liquor bottles and balloons at a memorial for his 31-year-old friend, Eric Ruise, among the latest victims of a murder spree gripping the city of Rochester, New York.

It had been two days since Ruise was gunned down in a barrage of bullets, from multiple shooters, outside a pharmacy. Ruise had been recently released from prison. He had committed, Ross said, to be a better father to his 10-year-old daughter, Jumyria.

“It makes no sense,” said Ross, 34, adding that no witnesses have stepped forward in the “broad daylight” murder. “This is the streets, the ‘hood.”

As Ross spoke, Jumyria’s mother picked up litter around the makeshift memorial. Such tributes have become a common sight in the poorer neighborhoods of Rochester, a city of 206,000 people in the northwestern part of the state. And the bloodshed in Rochester reflects a wave of violence in cities nationwide since last year.

With 34 homicides already this year, Rochester is on pace for a record-high 70 murders in 2021 – a per-capita rate that exceeds Chicago, one of America’s most violent large cities. Among cities with fewer than 500,000 people, Rochester saw the third-largest jump in its per-capita rate during the 12 months ending in April, according to americanviolence.org, a crime-mapping website led by Patrick Sharkey, a Princeton University sociology professor. Only New Orleans and Oakland saw bigger increases.

The rising violence in Rochester and nationally came as the coronavirus pandemic caused an economic crisis and the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police last summer ignited nationwide protests and undermined relations between police and communities.

The per-capita murder rate climbed 30 percent in 2020 among 34 major cities surveyed by Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. Murders in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago accounted for 40 percent of the 1,268 additional people killed in 2020, compared to the previous year, in the cities Rosenfeld studied.

In the first quarter of 2021, the research showed, the murder rate had declined from a peak the previous summer but was still up 24 percent over the first quarter of 2020. U.S. President Joe Biden pledged on Wednesday to go after the “merchants of death” who traffic illegal guns and to boost funding for local law enforcement nationwide.

The factors driving the violence are complex. Economic shocks such as the pandemic often spark a rise in crime. And some criminologists believe the national uprising over police killings of Black people, including Floyd, made residents of high-crime areas even less likely to assist police investigations, exacerbating a longstanding problem and emboldening violent criminals.

Rosenfeld said murders in the cities he studied peaked last summer as protests over Floyd’s killing raged and police departments nationwide came under intense public scrutiny. He believes, however, that this summer will be less deadly and noted that violent crime rates still remain well below a peak in the 1990s.

That’s little comfort right now in Rochester, where murders are still on the rise. Malik Evans, who this week defeated incumbent Mayor Lovely Warren in the Democratic primary, made combating gun violence a central campaign theme. In the heavily Democratic city, Evans is all but assured of winning the Nov. 2 general election.

Evans said the murder surge reflects rising problems with drug trafficking, criminal gangs and illegal firearms during the pandemic. While campaigning, he proposed naming a gun czar to work with federal officials to address the smuggling of guns into New York. He pointed to a 2016 state attorney general’s study that concluded three-fourths of seized guns came from other states.

“It’s a combustible fire that is getting ready to explode when you put all those things together,” Evans told Reuters shortly before his primary election victory, during a tour of Genesee Street, a thoroughfare and the site of many recent shootings.

The Rochester Police Department did not respond to questions about the causes of the rising homicide rate and its strategies to address the violence. The city’s police union, the Rochester Police Locust Club, said the department has only 12 investigators to pursue murder cases. Police data show that about two-thirds of this year’s cases remain open and unsolved.

‘PANDORA’S BOX’

Christopher Wood, 18, left a corner convenience store on June 12, walking with a 13-year-old boy down Genesee Street when they were both shot. Wood died. His companion, who has not been identified, survived.

Rochester Police have not disclosed any suspects or motives. The shooting illustrates troubling trends: Of the 186 shooting victims so far in 2021, nearly half were 25 years old or younger, and 90 percent were Black, police data show.

Wood’s sister, Shamarla Grice, told Reuters her brother had been devastated by the death of their mother in August from COVID-19. Afterward, he started hanging out with “older guys that were probably in gangs.”

Demond Meeks, a state lawmaker representing Rochester, said the city needs to provide better jobs for young people and to educate parents on signs that their children are involved with gangs.

“We do know that there is gang violence,” Meeks said at a gathering of 20 anti-violence advocates in a local park on June 16, following the Ruise shooting. “We have to come to grips with that.”

During the two-hour meeting, members of nonprofit organizations proposed violence prevention strategies including conflict-resolution training in schools and door-to-door canvassing in troubled neighborhoods. One man discussed his “Men Made Better” program to engage with young men through chess.

Midway through the meeting, Wanda Ridgeway of the nonprofit Rise Up Rochester slapped the table in disgust. She had just gotten a call about another shooting.

“I’m tired of our kids going around killing each other,” said John Rouse, 53, at the meeting. “It’s like Pandora’s box is open, and chaos is everywhere.”

‘WORSE THAN EVER’

Many community advocates in Rochester have called for better police protection while also demanding more accountability for police misconduct. It’s a delicate balance: Some worry efforts to rein in rogue officers may have the unintended consequences of restraining legitimate police work and empowering violent criminals.

The Ruise shooting occurred a few blocks from where Daniel Prude had an altercation with police in March 2020. Prude, who is Black, stopped breathing at the scene. He was revived but died a week later at a hospital.

The incident ignited protests and led to the resignation of Rochester’s police chief. Police body-camera footage released months later shows Prude naked and facedown in the street. Officers put a hood over his head after Prude, apparently suffering a mental crisis, said he had contracted COVID-19.

A grand jury earlier this year voted not to indict the officers involved. The outpouring of anger over the incident has sparked new efforts to combat police misconduct, including a $5 million city grant to hire 50 employees to investigate allegations against officers.

Rochester police did not respond to questions about efforts to prevent police misconduct.

Many community leaders cheered the extra scrutiny on the department. Clay Harris isn’t among them. He’s the founder of Uniting and Healing Through Hope of Monroe County, a local advocacy group focusing on violence. He said he’d rather see that $5 million spent on more officers to fight violent crime, which he attributes to a breakdown of families and an abandonment of Christian faith.

“They are not the problem,” said Harris, who is Black, of the city’s police force. “We are the problem as citizens.”

One evening last week, Retha Rogers and other members of anti-violence groups toured the neighborhood where her son was fatally shot in 2009.

“Every time that I hear that someone has been shot, it brings back memories of my son, and my heart goes out to the mothers,” Rogers said as she handed out flyers seeking information about her son, Michael Washington, Jr. “It’s worse than ever.”

At about the time Rogers’ group ended its meeting in prayer, police rushed to the scene of yet another murder across town. Brandon McClary, 22, had been gunned down by multiple shooters on Genesee Street.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Rochester, New York; additional reporting by Hussein Waaile and Lindsay DeDario in Rochester; editing by Brian Thevenot)

New York grand jury votes not to indict police officers for Daniel Prude death

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A grand jury in New York state voted not to indict police officers for the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died of asphyxiation while in police custody in March 2020 in the city of Rochester, state Attorney General Letitia James said on Tuesday.

Prude’s family obtained body-worn camera footage of Prude’s death that showed him naked in a dark, snowy street, a so-called mesh “spit hood” placed over his head after he told officers he had contracted the novel coronavirus. The video also shows him being restrained against the ground by police.

The footage was released in September, further fueling ongoing nationwide protests against police violence following other high-profile episodes in 2020 where police killed Black men and women.

James said her office had hoped to secure indictments in the death of Prude, a 41-year-old father of five children who lived in Chicago.

“I know that the Prude family, the Rochester community and communities across the country will rightfully be disappointed this outcome,” James said at a news conference in Rochester, a city in upstate New York.

A lawyer for Prude’s family, the Rochester mayor’s office and the Rochester Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Prude had visited his brother and ran out of the house in the middle of the night, prompting the brother to call the police, concerned for Prude’s mental health.

Police officers found Prude naked, approached him with a stun-gun and told him to put his hands behind his back so they could handcuff him, which Prude did, according to a report by James’ office.

Soon after the video emerged last September, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren fired Police Chief La’Ron Singletary. Seven police officers involved in the arrest were suspended.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker)

Rochester, N.Y., police officers suspended in pepper-spraying of 9-year-old girl

By Barbara Goldberg and Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – The mayor of Rochester, New York, ordered the immediate suspension on Monday of city police officers involved in the pepper-spraying of a 9-year-old girl while she was handcuffed, an incident caught on police body-camera video.

Mayor Lovely Warren said in a message posted on Twitter that the suspensions, announced after she met with the city’s police chief, would continue “at a minimum” until a police internal investigation of Friday’s arrest is completed.

“What happened Friday was simply horrible, and has rightly outraged all of our community,” the mayor said. “Unfortunately, state law and union contract prevents me from taking more immediate and serious action.”

Neither the mayor nor the police department made it clear exactly how many officers would be suspended.

She added that she would “lead the charge” in seeking changes to state law to allow municipal governments to take swifter action to discipline officers in such cases.

Police have said the officers involved were responding to a family disturbance call on Friday, and video footage taken during the incident showed police wrestling the girl to the ground in the snow.

“You’re acting like a child,” an officer tells her.

“I am a child,” the girl, who appears to be Black, says as she screams, crying for her father.

In Friday’s incident, Rochester Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson told reporters that the girl “indicated she wanted to kill herself and she wanted to kill her mom.”

After the girl tried to run away, officers handcuffed her and attempted to take her to a hospital in a patrol car, Anderson said.

She repeatedly screamed “I want my dad!” as the officers tried to pull her into the vehicle, the video showed.

“This is your last chance. Otherwise pepper spray is going into your eyeballs,” an officer tells her, adding, “I will call your dad.”

Eventually, another officer says, “Just spray her at this point.”

The girl screams and is heard pleading, “Wipe my eyes, please!”

“Unbelievable,” an officer sighs.

The girl’s identity was not released, and the video was blurred to provide anonymity. A representative for the child’s family could not be immediately identified.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Aurora Ellis)

Rochester, NY police chief retiring in wake of Daniel Prude’s death

(Reuters) – Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary abruptly announced his retirement on Tuesday amid growing scrutiny over the city’s handling of the arrest and investigation into the death of Daniel Prude.

“The chief has submitted his retirement papers, as well as others,” Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren told a City Council meeting on Tuesday afternoon, saying she had just been told that Singletary and his command staff would be leaving the force.

Rochester, a city of 200,000 people in northwestern New York state, erupted with protests last week after the Prude family released body camera footage from the arrest in March showing officers had used a hood and pinned Prude to the pavement to restrain him.

The protests were the latest following the May 25 death of George Floyd that reignited unrest across the United States over police violence and racial justice.

Warren acknowledged that she was still learning the facts and was unsure when the retirements would take effect.

“If that retirement is effective immediately, then we will have to find an interim chief,” she said. “I do know that it is going to be difficult to do that.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis)

Rochester police union defends officers involved in Prude’s arrest

(Reuters) – The head of Rochester, New York’s police union on Friday defended the actions of officers involved in the March arrest of Daniel Prude, a Black man whose death triggered protests, saying they followed protocols in using a hood to restrain him.

“They had to do exactly what they did,” Rochester Police Locust Club President Michael Mazzeo told a news conference on Friday, adding that there was a “substantial amount of evidence to show why the protocols” used by the officers were employed.

Prude, a 41-year-old Black man, died after he was arrested by police in Rochester, New York, in March. The incident has become the latest flash point in a summer of civil unrest over racism and police brutality.

Prude’s family this week released body camera footage from his arrest, showing him kneeling on the ground, handcuffed and naked while a group of officers putting a hood over his head – apparently to prevent his spit from possibly transmitting the novel coronavirus. Release of the video triggered protests in the city in northern New York.

Seven police officers were suspended Thursday over the arrest.

The medical examiner has ruled Prude’s death a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” An autopsy also cited intoxication by phencyclidine, or the drug PCP, among additional contributing factors to his death, according to the New York Times.

Separately, New York City detectives were investigating an incident in Times Square in Manhattan on Thursday evening during a protest over Prude’s death.

Video of the incident, shared widely on social media, shows a black Ford Taurus driving through a group of marchers and people on bicycles in Times Square, a major tourist destination and entertainment center in Manhattan.

New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Friday that detectives were investigating the incident. He noted that no one has come forward with injuries and that two protesters had struck the window of the car.

“We have to interview both sides. We’d like to interview anyone that was in that vehicle, because we believe there was multiple people in that vehicle, and anyone that was on the scene,” Shea said on Fox 5’s Good Day New York.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Dan Grebler and David Gregorio)