RPD

Organizers with the activist group Free The People Roc are responding to events that happened Tuesday involving arrests after protests including one at the Public Safety Building downtown..

Protesters showed up at that building Tuesday night demanding information about a protester who was arrested in Webster earlier in the day during a protest.

Rochester Police have released body-worn camera video of an arrest of a 21-year-old man that occurred last Friday and said its Professional Standards Section will conduct an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the arrest.

Police released more information about the arrest of 21-year-old Roy Siplin Sunday after questions around the arrest were raised earlier in the day by his father. Roy Siplin Sr. said he had learned his son was punched multiple times by police when he was arrested last Friday.

The Rochester Police Department racked up nearly $1.4 million in overtime hours preparing for and responding to demonstrations related to the city’s handling of the death of Daniel Prude over the last four weeks.

That figure was presented by the Police Department to members of City Council on Monday and represented RPD overtime pay during the four-week span of Aug. 31 and Sept. 27.

Members of the Police Accountability Board on Tuesday called on city officials to include them in ongoing investigations following the death of Daniel Prude after he was restrained and suffocated while in custody. He died a week later.

The civilian-run board, which was established to investigate police misconduct, has been excluded from deliberations over the Rochester Police Department, board chair Shani Wilson said. She said that undermines the point of having an accountability board.

Mayor Lovely Warren has fired Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary, effective immediately, and suspended her top communications aide and the city’s attorney for 30 days without pay.

During a news conference Monday, the mayor said she took the personnel actions after receiving a report from Deputy Mayor James Smith, whom she instructed to perform an “internal management review of the mental hygiene arrest and subsequent death of Daniel Prude to determine who knew what and when.”

Rochester City Council will consider legislation at their next meeting to repeal the funding they recently approved for a new police station. And it appears there are the six votes needed to rescind that funding that was approved last month.

A statement released Friday from Council President Loretta Scott and Councilmembers Mitch Gruber and Mary Lupien calls for repealing the earlier legislation that would borrow $12.5 million toward the $16 million police station and neighborhood service center on East Main Street.

For the second time this week, naked, or near-naked protesters have gathered in a public space in Rochester to show support for issues raised by Free The People Roc and other social justice groups in recent days.

The protests began last week when video surfaced of the way Daniel Prude was treated. Police were called to look for him last March by his brother, when Daniel was having a mental health crisis.