Richard Gregory Davis, left, with his grandsons.
Updated Tuesday June 2, 2015 11:11 p.m.
The family of Richard Gregory Davis has not been allowed to see his body since he was tasered by Rochester, NY Police officer Thomas Frye.
Family members have tried to see their loved one, but have been turned away.
Read my original story below.
A visibly nervous Rochester, NY Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli stumbled over his words as he read from a written statement, while glancing up to look at reporters during a news conference Sunday morning, after a black man man died after being tasered by a white Rochester, NY Police officer.
Despite Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminelli refusing to release the man's name, the man's family identified him as 50-year old Richard Gregory Davis, an ex-U.S. Marine who served in Beirut.
According to Ciminelli, a call came in to 911 Sunday morning around 8:57 a.m., for a motor vehicle accident on Tremont Street, which is located on Rochester's west side.
Ciminelli says Davis was acting erratic.
That's when Ciminelli says Davis got back into his red pickup truck and crashed into a street sign and a house, before locking himself in his truck for several minutes, before locking himself inside his pickup truck.
Ciminelli then said after a few minutes, the man got out of his truck with "clenched fists."
Carefully reading from the prepared statement, a twitchy Ciminelli said that's when a Rochester Police officer deployed his taser, striking Davis.
Ciminelli refused to say where on his body Davis was hit by the taser's prongs.
Fearing riots such as the ones in Baltimore, Maryland, and trying hard to keep a lot of the details as close to his vest as possible, Rochester Police Chief Mchael Ciminelli waited until late Monday afternoon to release the officer's name.
The officer is identified as Rochester, NY Police officer Thomas Frye.
Davis, who witnesses said fell face first to the ground after being electrocuted by the taser, was pronounced dead at Strong Memorial Hospital.
There are a lot of unanswered questions.
It's not known IF or why Davis was acting erratic, as Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminelli claims.
It's also important to remember that police officials often lie in order to get a jump on spinning their stories.
Stories which they fabricate in order to justify their actions to the public.
In other words, justify what is often an unjustified killing of black men.
Mainstream news media then runs with law enforcement's account and version of the events in question.
The result is a tainting of public opinion, where an all too trusting public is often easily persuaded into believing the police.
There are a lot of unanswered questions in the death of Mr. Davis.
What is known however, is one thing.
A black man, a father and grandfather and father who served his country in the U.S. Marines dies after being tasered by a white Rochester, NY Police officer.
Vic Simonetti, a Rochester, NY resident who follows fthis blog makes an interesting point in a comment he posted on my Facebook page.
"From the outside looking in, I think this man may have had a PTSD episode that led to his death," Simonetti writes, adding, "I'm sorry he lost his life on our streets after having served our military."
Kind of ironic isn't it?
Not dying overseas in Beirut, but dying in your own country, at the hands of a police officer?
As for Rochester, NY Police Chief Michael Ciminelli's worries about rioting in Rochester following the death of a black man at the hands of a white RPD cop?
Ciminelli has nothing to worry about.
You see, despite Rochester, NY's rich civil rights history, which includes Frederick Douglass, the father of America's civil rights movement, having founded his North Star anti-slavery newspaper in Rochester, and Susan B. Anthony, who spent many years in Rochester fighting for women's rights, including the right to vote, and whose house on Rochester's west side, just blocks away from Tremont Street, attracts thousands of visitors every year, the sad truth is the African-American community in Rochester, NY is very divided.
They have no unity.
In fact, for years I have written about Rochester's black community being complacent when it comes to abuse and atrocities which the Rochester Police Department, mainly white officers, have inflicted on black citizens.
So Chief Ciminelli, don't worry sir.
Sadly enough, I don't think you'll hear a peep from Rochester's African-American community.
They're too complacent and simply don't care.
And as for black youth in Rochester?
They also don't care about injustices in their city.
Nope, I don't think you'll hear as much as a peep from them either.
You see Chief, black youth in Rochester are more concerned about video recording and uploading the next viral fight video of black teens fighting each other to World Star Hip Hop, than they are in denouncing the atrocities your officers inflict on their communities every day.
It's really sad.
Rochester's black community just doesn't care.
At all.
I wonder what Fredrick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, who are both buried in Rochester's Mount Hope Cemetery, would say.
I will be updating this piece.
A nervous Rochester, NY Police Chief Michael Ciminelli at news conference.
