There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has had both direct and indirect effects on how we live our daily lives. Of course, many jobs have been eliminated and others are still fully remote. Students often have to learn from home, while we all need to wear face masks and stay at least six feet away from others when we’re in public. Weddings have been postponed, graduation ceremonies have been canceled, and music events have been put off or reimagined. And according to a recent Bank of America report, the pandemic is expected to have some effect on property buying patterns (although only 18% of respondents named COVID-19 as a potential catalyst for moving). Since the economy has taken a real hit during this time, it’s no surprise that the housing market and overall spending could be significantly impacted.
Some pandemic-era developments have had less of an obvious tie to COVID-19, but our current health crisis has allowed them to transform in ways they might not have otherwise if not for our new normal. There have been countless deaths among the Black community at the hands of police in the last several years — and in the last several months, protests across the nation have erupted and a shift has taken place in regards to the conversation surrounding racial justice and police violence. Despite the fact that overall crime has decreased over the last 40 years, the U.S. inmate population has skyrocketed by 500% during that time. Overwhelmingly, Black Americans are disproportionately punished for the same crimes as white people — and they’re also more likely to be killed during police encounters.
That fact was demonstrated after the news of Daniel Prude’s death finally made headlines six months after his encounter with Rochester police. The international news story threw the Flower City into the spotlight along with its mayor and (now removed) police chief. With the help of a lawyer (a profession that’s projected to enjoy a 6% increase in employment from 2014 to 2014), Daniel Prude’s family is suing the city. But since accountability regarding this case has been virtually non-existent from the start, activists and community members have joined together to hold protests ever since the circumstances surrounding Prude’s death became public.
Until now, the majority of those protests — which began earlier this summer following the death of George Floyd — have taken place within the City of Rochester itself. A few have made it out to the suburbs, but most of the attention (and police presence) has been concentrated on the larger gatherings in the center of the city. However, planned demonstrations in the past two weeks made their way out to Webster and were characterized by arrests and disturbing video of law enforcement behavior. Now, attendees and community members alike are demanding answers.
Protesters demonstrated in front of the Webster home of Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley at the end of last week — a move that prompted criticism from Town Supervisor Tom Flaherty. In a column Flaherty wrote entitled, “Peaceful Protest or Harassment Challenging the Right of Quiet Enjoyment,” he questioned whether the event was, “a peaceful protest exercising the right of free speech… or a show of force in numbers, representative of more gangland rules of intimidation and threats.” He pointed out that more than 100 people came to Doorley’s neighborhood shortly after 9 pm last Friday, though they all dispersed less than an hour later before Webster’s noise ordinance went into effect.
Flaherty, who says he supports peaceful protesting in front of government buildings and in public parks, explained, “This is just so unprecedented — that you have a group that large, unplanned, going into a residential neighborhood at night… I don’t like that type of event. Call it a protest. Call it a scary group of a lot of people swearing and it’s harassment. It doesn’t matter how you interpret that. I personally don’t want that on a residential street in the town of Webster. I wouldn’t want that on a residential street in the city of Rochester, I wouldn’t want that on a residential street ever.”
But as Free the People ROC leader Iman Abid-Thompson pointed out: “There [have] been a lot of cases locally where people have been harmed in front of their own neighborhoods by police, right? They have been killed in front of their own homes by police. So what’s so different about entering someone’s neighborhood to protest in front of their homes, especially when no one is getting hurt?”
That said, tensions may be escalating — and it might not be the protesters who are to blame. On Monday, following a “Being Black in the ‘Burbs” protest in Webster, two protesters were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct. Law enforcement also alleges that protesters ignored repeated warnings to stay on the sidewalk and were instead in the street and harassing motorists.
But the organizers have publicly disputed the Webster Police Department’s official account of events, including the arrests that were made. Not only were the vast majority of the officers not wearing masks, says the group, but their Facebook statement claims that officers “deliberately went after demonstrators” and shoved them as they were actually cleaning up the area. They further claim that no laws were broken and that the arrests have no basis in truth.
Video of that same protest was released on Facebook by attendees and was retweeted by prominent members of the community like Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart. Although the video doesn’t provide enough context, it’s clear that police officers rush to protesters who are standing on the grass median off of the main road, forcibly grab signs, shove attendees, and place at least one individual under arrest — all while the person filming is demanding to know why.
As a result, protesters from Free the People ROC gathered at the Webster Police Station the following evening in an effort to hold officers accountable for their actions. Spectrum News reported that the group, consisting of around 30 people, blocked the entrance used by patrol cars; attempts by a sergeant to move the group away proved unsuccessful. According to the Free the People ROC Facebook page, protests were to continue at the City’s public safety building as a continuation of the events that took place following the Webster protests. This is a developing story.
