#Mass resignation by Rochesters’ top cops is a win for the mob and loss for the public

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Under fire, Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary abruptly resigned this week — as did his entire command staff.
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Under fire from protesters and politicians, Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary abruptly resigned this week — and so did his entire command staff. It raises the ugly question: Who’d want to become a police officer, much less a commander, now?

There’s a real gripe here: Several Rochester cops were involved in the death of Daniel Prude on March 24, and bodycam video released publicly only recently does not make them look good.

But state Attorney General Tish James has been investigating the incident since March: This was not being covered up.

And Prude’s own brother called the police that night after Daniel, with a history of mental issues, began to act erratically. The video shows a real struggle to take him into custody, including a battle to put a mesh spit hood over his head — because, the officers say, he claimed to be COVID-positive and was spitting at them.

Until the investigation (likely delayed, like everything else, by the pandemic) is done, we can’t say with confidence if the cops did wrong. Such confrontations are a too-familiar result of systems that leave it to police to handle people with serious mental issues.

But that doesn’t matter to the protesters who swarmed to Rochester to march and riot after the tape came out. More: Mayor Lovely Warren joined the activists in questioning Singletary’s truthfulness and character.

So the chief decided to leave at month’s end: “As a man of integrity, I will not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character,” the 20-year Rochester PD veteran explained.

His top aides quit, too: Deputy Chief Joseph Morabito is retiring after 34 years; Deputy Chief Mark Simmons is returning to his previous rank. Commanders Fabian Rivera and Elena Correia and others are likewise either retiring or returning to lower-ranked posts. The group announced the mass exit shortly before they were to brief the mayor and City Council — a pointed answer to the politicians’ posturing.

In 18 months as chief, Singletary assembled a command staff that looked like the residents of Rochester — and, like him, hailed from the communities the RPD patrols. He’d been trying to implement internal reforms; that’s all up in the air now.

The mob is cheering the top cops’ exit as a victory. The real losers, clearly, are the good citizens of Rochester.