Letter to Mayor Duffy

Dear Mayor Duffy,

I am writing as a concerned citizen of the City of Rochester. I, like many others that I am sure you have heard from, am very surprised and shocked at the alleged incident that took place last Friday. As a gay individual, someone who lives close to the area where the attack took place, and a person fairly new to the City of Rochester, it certainly raised some concern for me personally.

While I applaud the city and your office for it's prompt and serious response to the incident, I am still concerned as to how this incident got so out of hand so quickly. While I am sure you and your office are also concerned, I wonder what will be done to be sure this doesn't happen in the future. I hope the city and police department take a proactive role in ensuring that police respond to victims in a way that will not further alienate and victimize them.

I am not going to speculate on what happened that night because I am sure there are many sides to the story and I am confident that the ongoing investigation will uncover the facts but there are several things that are very clear about this incident. There were citizens that were beaten and have serious wounds as a result of the attack. The police were called and responded to the attack. There were no arrests made at the scene or formal statements taken from witnesses or victims nor was there any indication of a formal report being filed in relation to the incident. Furthermore, the victims of the beating, some of whom sustained injuries that required medical attention, were told to "go home". These are all things that helped to lead up to what was probably bad judgement on behalf of the victims and police involved. The most concerning thing to me is that regardless of whether the police engaged in any brutality or used any slurs toward the victims, it seems clear that they did not respond in a manner that was professional. I have a college education in Public Justice so I understand that police should have the discretion to respond to incidence and make arrests as they see fit but wonder if this situation could have easily been avoided by a bit of sensitivity on behalf of the responding officers. It was very clear that an assault had taken place and the pipe was obviously still at the scene if the news media was able to feature it in a story that they ran. The victims had serious injuries.

I understand that you personally have a background and history with the Rochester Police Department so I am sure you are just as shocked by these accusations as anyone. I do not doubt your commitment to resolving these issues and holding any officers who may have acted inappropriately responsible. I guess I just wanted to make my views heard to my elected officials as this does have a very real impact on the way I live my life here in Rochester. I also wanted to say that even if there was no physical abuse by police involved, verbal harassment, even if out of frustration, can not be tolerated especially from police offers who are on the job and have promised to uphold the laws and serve the public. I would also urge the city, as I am sure it is doing, to look into the procedures when responding to assaults like this so that in the future, victims don't feel like the police are victimizing them again or not taking appropriate measures to ensure their safety.

Again, I would like to thank you for coming out and speaking up on this incident and I trust that you will treat this matter with the seriousness that it warrants.

Respectfully yours,

Sarah Waffle