Rochester, NY Mayor Lovely Warren and her Puppets.
With just a little more than a year left in her train wreck first term in office, and in a desperate political attempt to boost her 39 percent favoribility rate, Rochester, NY Mayor Lovely Warren held a press conference in wake of a viral video showing white Rochester, NY cops pepper-spraying and tackling a black mother in front of her 5-year old daughter, and arresting Clarence Thompson, a black man who video recorded the incident.
Rochester, NY Cops on top of LaTroya Parker after they pepper-sprayed and tackled her in front of her 5-year old daughter.
One by one they all lined up under the large painting of Jonathan Child, Rochester, NY's first mayor.
Lovely Warren, Rochester's first black female mayor, and just the second African-American mayor in the city's history, flanked on both sides by her puppets.
To her right, City Council members Matt Hague, Adam McFadden, and Loretta Scott.
To her left, Rochester, NY Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli, and Deputy Chief of Community Relations, Wayne Harris.
It was a hastily put together press conference, poorly organized, and held in a tight corner of Rochester's City Hall, right next to a main entrance.
The city's portable audio system was terrible, and so was the positioning of the small podeum, which was placed in direct sunlight.
City of Rochester officials even positioned the podeum in under sunlight.
Mayor Warren announced that Rochester, NY Police Chief Michael Ciminelli and Wayne Harris, the RPD's newly appointed Deputy Chief of Community Relations, will spend the next 60 days listening to citizens for their ideas on what the Rochester Police Department can do to improve community relations.
Warren also said that Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli has 90 days to come up with a plan on how to improve those relations.
"We will not get everything 100 percent right," Warren said.
"We won't, but the thing is, in Rochester, we try."
What a load of shit.
Spoken like a true politician.
Rochester, NY City Councilman Adam McFadden
Then came Rochester, NY City Councilman Adam McFadden, who chairs the city's public safety committee.
McFadden once again promised a civilian review board to oversee the Rochester, NY Police Department and investigate allegations of police misconduct.
A promise he has made for years.
And as I stood there, it hit me, just what a fucking joke my hometown is.
My dad Mario Vara, a longtime police accountability activist in Rochester, NY, along with the late Reverend Raymond Graves, spent years calling for a civilian review board.
In fact, the call for a civilian review board has been made in Rochester, NY, dating back to the 1960's.
The 1960's.
A very tense time in Rochester, NY between police and the black community.
That tension exploded in July of 1964 with riots.
It's also important that when it comes to a civilian review board, the Rochester, NY Police Union has been vehemently opposed for decades.
In fact, in 1963, the Rochester, NY Police Union took out a full one page ad in Rochester's Times-Union newspaper, calling for the community to oppose a civilian review board.
And here we are.
More than 50 years later.
Still calling for a civilian review board.
It disgusts me.
A black Mayor who has never gave two shits about rogue cops abusing citizens, especially blacks and Latinos, was now finally conveniently speaking out, pretending to care, when in reality she's just politicizing the fact that her police department is out of control, all in an attempt to get black votes in order to get another term of the same old same old.
And a weak police chief who has no backbone to stand up to his own cops.
A puppet.
A liar.
On one hand Rochester, NY Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli says there's nothing wrong with the police body-cams the city purchased for his department.
On the other hand Mike Mazzeo, the President of the Rochester Police Locust Club, the department's union, says the body cameras the city purchased are poor quality and ineffective.
According to Mazzeo, the body cams are so poor in quality that they're only used by three other police departments in the country.
Rochester, NY Police Union President Mike Mazzeo
During a press conference Monday, Mazzeo said that the body-cams Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli purchased for his cops abruptly shut off and are not reliable.
Which is what he says happened during that controversial arrest of LaTroya Parker, the black mother who was pepper-sprayed and tackled by a Rochester Police officer in front of her 5-year old daughter.
During yesterday's press conference, Mayor Lovely Warren and Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli also announce that they would be releasing the body-cam video of the arrest, as well as video from the a City of Rochester surveillance camera, located on top of a utility pole on the street where the arrest happened.
The body-cam video footage, which they released is poor quality.
The video looks amateurish.
It actually reminded me of the video quality which old-school flip phones used to provide, long before the smart phone camera technology.
The video was pixelated.
Just horrible.
Rochester, NY WHAM 1180 radio host Bob Lonsberry
Even Rochester's WHAM 1180 radio host Bob Lonsberry, a staunch pro-police advocate, blasted the Rochester Police Department for their lack of transparency.
"The release of that video was so delayed... with the extraordinarily amateurish and crude pixelation was completely useless", said Lonsberry.
"The community is going to look at that and say what's that?"
Lonsberry continued.
"What's the point of releasing that?", Lonsberry asked.
"And what's the point of waiting two weeks to release that?"
"That's almost distrustful to the notion of openness and transparency", Lonsberry said, adding, "I think one thing this police department (Rochester Police) probably ought to do is understand the volatility of upset urban communities."
Then referring to the Rochester Police Departnent dragging its feet to release the videos, Lonsberry said something many have been saying for years."
"That's exactly what gets neighborhoods burned down."
Personally, what I found perhaps even more disturbing than the poor video quality of the Rochester Police Department's body-cam footage, and the fact that they were slow to release the videos, is the fact that neither the body-cam video nor surveillance camera video show what both Chief Ciminnelli and Rochester Police Union President Mike Mazzeo claimed happened during the arrest of the LaTroya Parker.
Chief Ciminneli has said that what the community didn't see in the viral video is that Parker assaults a Rochester Police officer, by "backhanding the officer."
Rochester Police Union President Mike Mazzeo claims that Parker hits the Rochester Police officer and breaks his glasses.
As a result, Mazzeo says the officer suffered cuts to his face.
However, none of the video footage released by Rochester, NY Mayor Lovely Warren and Chief Ciminnelli show that.
Do they think people are stupid?
Check out the videos below, of me blasting Rochester, NY Mayor Lovely Warren and Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli.
Notice how they both completely ignore the majority of my questions.
Yet they both claim to want to listen to the community.
In the video, pay close attention to Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli, when I repeatedly ask him why his officers continue to violate citizens' first amendment right to record.
And he completely ignores my questions before a City of Rochester spokeswoman ends the press conference.
Rochester, NY Police Chief Michael Ciminnelli ignores my questions during press conference
CLICK LINK BELOW TO WATCH MY VIDEO WHERE I CALL OUT ROCHESTER, NY MAYOR LOVELY WARREN
CLICK LINK BELOW TO WATCH MY VIDEO WHERE I CALL OUT ROCHESTER, NY POLICE CHIEF MICHAEL CIMINNELLI
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