Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and City Council President Loretta Scott are calling for a residency requirement for all newly hired officers in the Rochester Police Department.
Warren said that having officers live in the community they protect and serve will help build relationships with the people that they are policing.
“It’s not that you’re coming into a community, and you’re policing that community, and then you’re going out and you live someone else. It is that we’re in this together and I think that residency will require that type of mindset. 'This is my family, this is my community, I’m here to stay, my family’s here to stay,'” Warren said.
The residency requirement will need approval by the state legislature and Warren and Scott say they will be meeting with members of the local delegation to get their support. Officials say that Buffalo and Syracuse are looking for a similar residence requirement for their police departments
