Downtown growth, police review, breaks for business
police
Posted inNews & Opinion
The big divide
In 2001 and 2002, the dramatic deaths of five African-Americans during or following a police action made Rochester headlines. In one incident, an officer shot and killed a 14-year-old boy who was fleeing a police chase. In another, an officer tripped during a drug raid and fatally shot a man. <p?It was a tense time. […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Hurt and anger in the neighborhoods
“Anger is a secondary emotion. The first emotion is hurt. Our kids are angry, but initially they are hurt. They’re in excruciating pain; they have nothing to look up to, nothing to look forward to.” Those words came from one of the many speakers at a December 7 community forum, attended by about 60, mostly […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Car 54, where are you?
There are areas in the city of Rochester where people are not getting adequate police service. “The inequality of the calls for service right now in some areas compared to other areas, I think, [is] startling,” says City Council President Lois Giess. According to a study commissioned by the Rochester Police Department, there […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Are you mad yet?
It’s hard to analyze Jack Doyle’s 2004 budget proposal thoroughly. But having spent a good bit of last week reading it, I’ve reached some conclusions, having nothing to do with whether we ought to up the sales tax to pull ourselves out of the hole we’re in. One conclusion is that at the end […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Details, details: the philosophy of joint-policing
Americans didn’t much notice the death of philosopher Ivan Illich in Germany December 2. A priestly soul with the long view, Illich was a connoisseur of internal contradiction. In Deschooling Society, for example, he wrote that traditional schools teach people “to confuse process and substance” and to assume that “the more treatment there is, […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Reader Feedback 9.18.02
Supporting police, praising McCall, helping schools, fighting the budget cuts
Posted inNews & Opinion
Reader feedback 9.4.02
Whose rights? In “Taking the FIF” (August 14), Jack Bradigan Spula presents statistics that, like all statistics, leave unanswered questions. For example: “The NYCLU report shows that drug activity accounts for 55 percent of FIFs; no other ‘context’ accounts for more than 10 percent.” And [quoting SUNY Brockport professor Eileen O’Brien]: “‘Drug use data consistently […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Interviews afield: policing and racial bias
“Field interview form.” It sounds like something a reporter might pull from a back pocket. But an “FIF” is not blank or neutral. It’s a controversial tool of neighborhood policing. It’s also an indicator of what people on the street are up to, and what the police are doing about it. That’s why […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Cops, secrecy, and the grand jury
When two city cops shot 14-year-old Craig Heard to death last month, did the Rochester Police Department conduct a thorough, unbiased investigation?
Posted inNews & Opinion
Reader feedback 7.10.02
What if? In response to Jack Bradigan Spula’s “Just a Child: Learning the Facts of Death” (June 19): What if Craig Heard was “a wonderful little, smiling little (white) person”? What if officers Serge Savitcheff, Hector Padgham, and Mike Tymoch were people of color? What if we had a police force that […]
