Conservative Party of Monroe County speaks out against the Police Advisory Board, March 26, 1963
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The Conservative Party of Monroe County spoke out against the Police Advisory Board in a letter to Rochester City Council dated March 26, 1963. See the scanned letter to council below in .pdf form. This document was sent to us by the City of Rochester after it received our Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request.
While the Police Advisory Board became law in 1963 to address complaints against officers said to have used "excessive and unnecessary force" against them, the Locust Club police union did everything in its power to thwart it from actually accomplishing anything. Two injunctions were slapped on it by the court preventing it from conducting investigations and forwarding recommendations to the chief of police--it's primary functions. By the mid-1960s, new appointments to the board were needed to meet quorum in order for it to do its work. But neither Democrats nor Republicans appointed anyone to the board after it was found constitutional by the courts in 1969. It was then defunded and abolished in 1970 by the new Republican Party-lead Rochester city government.
