Rochester police to enforce curfew on large gatherings 

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In the wake of several weeks of violence, Mayor Lovely Warren announced the city has put in place a curfew for gatherings in public and private. The Rochester Police Department will be enforcing the curfew with assistance from the state police.

Warren has issued an emergency order to prohibit public gatherings of more than five people and private gatherings of more than 10 unrelated people between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.  Bars and restaurants are excluded from the curfew, which will last for five days unless the mayor extends it.
Under the order, anyone accused of breaking the curfew can be charged with a misdemeanor.

During a news conference, city officials said that 20 people have been shot or stabbed over the past two weeks. Warren added that many of these incidents were preceded by large parties.

“This community can do more, they can make a different decision, they can make different choices,” Warren said. “It comes down to making sure we’re preserving life rather than taking life.”

The Rochester Police Department will ramp up patrols in unspecified “hot spots,” according to officials. Dozens of New York State Troopers will help with the crackdown starting Wednesday.

“They are going to be assisting us in patrolling the hot spots where these parties have occurred,” said Chief La’Ron Singletary. “I get it, we’re in a pandemic, but when you start seeing the violence we’ve seen in the past two months, we have to do something.”

Since June 1, 70 people have been shot in Rochester — eight of them fatally — and 10 have been stabbed, according to data provided by the city. While overall violent crime is down in Rochester, shootings have gone up 46 percent from 2019 to 2020, according to data from the Monroe County Crime Analysis Center.

“I understand the frustration, I understand the pain, I understand what people are going through, the times we are in we’ve never been in before,” Warren said. “But we’re in this together. We may not be in the same boat, but we’re in the same storm.”

Gino Fanelli is a CITY staff writer. He can be reached at [email protected].