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Dem-Controlled Rochester Explodes: 13 Shot, 1 Stabbed; Cops Assaulted While Tending To 16-Year-Old Shot In Face

   DailyWire.com
Mayor Lovely Warren speaks on stage at 2019 ESSENCE Festival Presented By Coca-Cola at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on July 06, 2019 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Paras Griffin/Getty Images for ESSENCE

Over the July 4 weekend, 13 people were shot and one person was stabbed in the City of Rochester, New York, where there is a population of roughly 206,000 residents. During the violent weekend, several police officers were assaulted as they rushed to tend to a 16-year-old shooting victim.

The terror in the Democrat-controlled area comes on the heels of a budget cut to the Rochester Police Department, effective July 1.

“A busy July 4th weekend for RPD, with 13 people shot at 10 different incidents from Friday through today,” News 8 WROC reported Sunday. “Five people have been arrested thus far and there have been no fatalities reported at this time.”

Rochester area reporter Scott Barstow said officers tending to a 16-year-old shooting victim on Saturday night were met by a group of about 25 people; at least two from the group assaulted the officers on scene.

“A 16-year-old was shot at least one time on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Barstow reported. “While investigating, officers were approached by a group of around 25 people. (unrelated to the shooting) two people assaulted the officers.”

 

As noted by WHAM 1180, the group of 25 people was yelling at officers as they responded to the shooting, and at least four members of the group were arrested after two officers were injured.

“A 16-year-old was shot early this morning in the area of Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street,” WHAM tweeted on Sunday. “Police investigating that shooting were approached by a crowd of some 25 people who began to yell and grab at the officers. Two officers were injured and 4 people arrested.”

 

On June 16, the Rochester City Council voted 8-1 on to approve a budget cut to the Rochester Police Department (RPD), effective July 1, a result of police accountability protests from left-leaning city officials and local activists.

“That budget reduces funding to police, notably by halving a recruit class,” the Democrat & Chronicle outlined.

The RPD budget was slashed by 3.7% under an amended spending plan which removed police resource officers from Rochester schools and cut the department’s recruit class by half, Spectrum News reported, last month.

“City council also committed three-quarters of a million dollars from the police budget to form a task force to reimagine policing in Rochester,” the report added.

Two days earlier, during a meeting where left-leaning members and activists proposed a 50% reduction in the police budget, City Council members took a knee for eight minutes and forty-six seconds in solidarity with the far-left anti-cop Black Lives Matter movement.

The time spent kneeling was a reference to the amount of time a Minneapolis officer had his knee on George Floyd’s neck during an arrest. Floyd later died and the officer at the center of the arrest has been charged with second-degree murder.

“During the meeting, the council said it would appeal a judge’s decision which stripped disciplinary authority from the recently-created Rochester Police Accountability Board,” Spectrum News reported. “The police union successfully sued to get that result.”

Democratic Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren has supported Black Lives Matter protesters, blaming Rochester violence and destruction on so-called “outsiders.” The mayor, however, has said many residents do not want to see the RPD defunded, nor does she.

“So there are many residents in the city of Rochester, right?,” Mayor Warren said, according to WXXI. “And they all have different needs that we have to balance. I can tell you that as many people as you’ve talked to, I’ve spoken to who say don’t defund the police.”

“So our goal is that we work in partnership and that we try to uplift the entire community,” she continued. “There are many people who want the relationship between the police and the community to improve and I’ve already shown you the steps that we’ve taken since 2014 to improve them.”

“Nothing happens in a vacuum but I can tell you that by light years Rochester is ahead of the curve and we will continue to do what is necessary to make sure that our community feels safe and that our officers feel safe and that we can work in partnership to uplift our community together,” the Democrat added.

At the end of May, following radical rioting in the city, Warren seemingly shifted blame for the destruction by stating that those committing illegal acts were “outsiders.”

However, after arrest reports showed that crimes were committed by city residents, the mayor clarified to say “outsiders” meant people outside of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Outsiders – and I do mean outsiders – not from our city, not from our community, decided to set police cars on fire,” Warren said immediately following the violence.

“These people set a trap, and our community fell in it,” she added. “And last night it was our community that destroyed our neighborhoods.”

The mayor later clarified: “I want to make clear what I meant,” she said. “I meant outsiders of the Black Lives Matter movement … The Black Lives Matter people had a peaceful protest in Martin Luther King Park, yesterday.”

Rochester police chief La’Ron Singletary said the crime was committed by “anarchists,” whom he later described as “law enforcement professional protestors.”

Local radio host Bob Lonsberry reacted to the violent weekend, commenting specifically on the officers being assaulted: “When you legitimize hating the police, you get blood on your hands.”

 

A complete timeline of the crime over the July 4 weekend in Rochester can be viewed here.

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