Rochester officials provided a public safety update on Wednesday
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — On Wednesday, the officials of Rochester provided another public safety update. This time, the focus was on the ongoing efforts to lower the rate of violent crime in the city.
This comes as a result of the fact that there have been 72 killings in the city so far in 2022.
Chief David Smith of the Rochester Police Department has expressed his belief that measures taken to curb crime have been effective. He states that the number of people who have been shot has dropped by 16% while the number of shootings has dropped by 12% since this time last year.
According to Smith, this is in part due to enhanced patrols as well as joint efforts with federal authorities to target those who are known to be in possession of firearms.
A total of sixty-four people have been taken into custody as a result of the “Rescue Our City” effort, which is a collaboration between the Rochester Police Department and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Despite the fact that these efforts were successful, Mayor Malik Evans has said that even a single fatality is unacceptable.
“There’s a lot of people who are not going to have a family member sitting at the Thanksgiving table or under the Christmas tree as they open gifts because they were gone as a cycle of violence. There’s some little kid that’s going to be looking around [and] they’re not going to see their mom or dad around. Or there’s a mother who’s going to be going to her son’s room to tell him ‘happy Thanksgiving’ and he’s not going to be there. And that all leads to isolation, it leads to loneliness and it can lead to anger which can often result in violence,” Evans said.
Officials also said that more information about a newly joined initiative, the Department of Defense’s Public Safety Partnership Program, will be made public in the near future.
