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in Fairport and driven by Victor Chrysler Dots Jeep Ram, It's Billified the Bill
Moran Podcast. Well, hello and welcome. Thanks for getting your pot on,
Thanks for telling a friend. That's how we spread the word about the
pirate ship. Tonight different We've got some people with some credentials in the studio
today, Sergeant Michael Zamira from the Monroe County Sheriff's Department and doctor Mark Guesting
from u RMC, who is a trauma surgeon, and they're here to talk
about the Consortium for Safe Communities, which the doc and I were talking before
you came in, Sergeant, and I said, you know, I didn't
do a whole lot, because I wanted to have real reaction and learn about
this as we were going along. But what I read, I said,
it just sort of made sense. And he said, you would think thank
you, you would think so, yes, I understand, But where does
the idea? This sounds to me like it would be a great thing for
the entire state. I don't believe that the Rochester, the Greater Rochester community
is the only one that is seeing this uptick. I mean we see it
around the country. We see major metropolitans and others that are having similar problems
to these things. But the Consortium for the Safe Community in terms of just
even trying to change the laws and things, it feels like, at least
in New York State, it's like pulling a piano up the side of a
building, or maybe try to find a bullet and abdomen. I don't know,
Doc, I mean maybe that that's the case. I'm not really sure.
What would you Where does the idea come from? The first? Let's
start there. Yeah, yeah, so thank you, by the way,
probably very well, doctor and I and to talk about this issue. We
feel very strongly about it, the both of us, and we're very excited
to use your your bully pulpit here to talk about it. So the Consortium
for Safe Communities began. I think it was October of twenty two was the
first meeting of this, this wide ranging group of stakeholders from around the community.
And really, my boss, Sheriff Baxter, was coming to me every
day saying, I have this message from this person I've you know, I
visited with a grieving mother last night. There's all these people from around our
community who just have had enough that they can't believe that that the state of
public safety in their communities has gotten to the level it has gotten and obviously
not in a good way. So you know, we're not just gonna sit
there and put these people on the back burner. And but what we found
very quickly was there were many many people from around our community that felt the
same way. Right, they all had leadership roles in the community. They
had people that were crying on their shoulders, but what can they do about
it? And that was that was the big question. What can we do?
So we canven into a small group, I don't know, fifteen or
so people and you know, put it out to the group, what what
can we do so that group has grown exponentially since since then. But you
know, really the impetus behind it was what do we think the problem is?
And everybody in the room, which by the way, was an extremely
diverse group, and not diverse in the sense of sex, in race,
in religion and things of that nature, but really just diverse in the sense
that they represent every sort of person you could think of in the Rochester every
community. You know, I've got a very educated, highly skilled MD sitting
across from me. He was one of the original members, Cheryl Robinson from
the North Winton Village Association is there. So we just we have this consortium
of people who all have the same interest in They're not interested in we're not
interested in arguing. We're about arriving at a solution. It's the mastermind group,
right, I mean, that's usually what it's called when when we go
through and try to do things, you go back to even like the founding
of this country, it was a mastermind group of trying to figure out how
do we solve the problem or the common goal that we want. Yeah,
and that's exactly what it is. What it what it what it became,
and and what the group decided is first and foremost, this is not a
problem that's going to be solved by arresting people by by cops alone. It's
a it's a grassroots, it's a community effort. And when we really drilled
down to it and we tried to arrive at what the solution is. There's
many solutions, but what this group concentrated on is initially two things. We
need to be able to detain people who are dangerous, yes, and we
need to be able to detain people who just refuse to commit stop committing that
cycle of criminality, so we call them the repeat offenders. So that was
the impetus. Uh. The initial goal of the group is to sort of
advocate for legislation that would allow judges to do those two things, and there's
ways to do them fair and objective. There's forty nine other states in this
country that hold people based upon the risk they present to the public safety.
We are the only one that does not have that legislation. So the risk
of public safety would be much like uh, we label sex offenders correct,
like you level want what what is your risk? And where do we hold
you? Is that so? Bill, I I don't want to accuse you
of doing anything but I think you might have done some homework, because that's
exactly I told you. I read the one page. Yeah, yeah,
so that's exactly what I wanted to learn as we went along about about the
this. But yes, so I think so that's exactly it. When a
sex offender goes to court to be sentenced, they go there with what's called
a SORA score and forgive me, I forget the acronym, but they're assigned
a risk based upon a measurable unbiased risk assessment tool that says this person is
a level one, two, three, and so on, and then you
know, the sentence is carried out in accordance with that in mind. And
we're saying that tool exists for measuring a person's dangerousness. I know of one
created by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation that's widely used throughout the state.
And that's just one of them. So these things exist, we don't have
to build it out. There are other states, and not to mention our
federal government in DC that use those things. Why why does New York State
not use it? Yeah? You know, there's there's a lot of the
representatives that just that feel very strongly against that and I'm unclear as to why
they think that. You know, I I know that there has been arguments
surrounding inequalities and in unfairness when when you carry those things out that they can
tend to be biased. But well, I thought the Earl on I remember
talking to Mayor Evans in the City of Rochester about some of these laws,
that they were more the bail reform law was more meant for somebody who,
let's say, and he used this analogy, stole a pack of gum,
that that person wouldn't be locked up necessarily, they would be able to go
to work and still pay their bills and meet their obligations. And again it
almost sounds like the assessment that you're talking about, is this guy a big
risk to the community he swiped the pack of gum or a bottle of soda
or whatever. You know, Let's try to let's try to show them a
better way and let them keep making money and live by societal standards and not
by criminal standards. But yet it seems like it's gone much different than that.
And I don't know that it's any fault of a judge. I think
they're going by the letter of the law. By which it is, which
makes it difficult. So then you need to change the law, which means,
you know, trying to get the legislators and all that stuff. And
that's the piano of the side of the building part. But in the meantime,
the community suffer. Yeah. So the thing is is, you know,
so it's Ballery Farm one piece of the pie, and it is a
major piece in that pie. But when you look back over the last I
think a six years now at this point, there have been six major major
reforms to our justice system that have been pushed down the thru way that we
as a community have been sort of forced to absorb. You know, you
talk about batle reform, you talk about raise the age is a huge one,
Less is more, deals with parole, the hal Tact, which not
many people know about, deals with keeping people safe in jails. It uh
uh. Marijuana reform was a big one, you know, a very good
likelihood actually fully believe it killed Officer Mazerkowitz. The the the the issues that
arose out of there with the creation of the gray market. So you have
all these reforms and every one of them I will not dispute, and I
know my boss wouldn't either there was good intentions behind all of them. So
you talk about baler reform, about the kid that stole a pack at gum
Ballery form, a major push behind came after a young man out of New
York City. I think he had stolen a backpack and he was detained and
essentially forgotten about on Rikers Island for for a long time, and I think
it was months, and he ultimately, you know, he dealt with some
mental health issues and he died in custody, and that was unacceptable for a
person to be sitting in Rikers Island who really shouldn't have been treated in that
manner and locked up for that amount of time. So there was reform that
was needed to our system. There's no question. I don't think there's a
cop on the street that'll argue with that. But the problem that came was
that pendulum swung so far the other way. And by the way, there
were no law enforcement administrators, advisors, experts that were really part of the
conversation, and that's where they it's interesting to use the analogy of the pendulum.
I feel like in society it has swung so far in general, Not
to get into too much other but it just seems like it's it's gone so
far in so many aspects of life that when it needs to sort of come
back. But how many years have you been in law enforcement. I think
it's just about nineteen years. Nineteen years, so you're almost two decades on
the job. Things when from when you started to now society better worse we're
seeing Is there more crime? Yeah? So it which sounds ridiculous and then
may be hard to quantify. I don't know. Yeah, I you know,
so I worked for the first seventeen years of my career, I worked
in the jail, so not the guy out on the streets stopping, but
they come to us, and you know, we raised some of these people
when they were kids in jail, sixteen year old. It's we're we are
responsible for in some cases. And you know this is not a blank and
statement by any means, but I know a lot of people in that jail
that I work with that that did exactly that raise these kids. And we
develop rapport with these with these individuals that come in and your quote unquote repeat
customers, so we deal with them often. And to answer your question,
if there's a difference in the way things are nineteen years ago versus now.
You know, that's a that's an obvious answer. Absolutely, it's black and
white almost, and and some of that change is good. We're doing a
lot of more, a lot more work in jails centered around making people good
people again. Yeah, and it doesn't always work, but we're gonna try
anyway. Yeah, because it's the right thing to do. Uh. But
yeah, a big difference in what we're seeing today versus what we're seeing quite
a while ago. Yeah, Doc, when it comes to you, I
mean you've been in Rochester, you said twenty three years. So so Mike
talked about the Consortium of the Consortium, So basically, that's a group that
represents many pieces in many aspects of the community. So I'm a trauma surgeon,
so my little slice of life is in the hospital people who are shot,
stabbed, victims of violence. So that's my little window into the world.
But I sit at the same table with people who are involved in the
faith community, involved in the business community, involved in law enforcement. So
each one of us is seeing life from a kind of different perspective. I
can tell you over the twenty three years I've been here, I have absolutely
seen a shift there is more, there is more violence, there is less
accountability for that violence, and the repeat offender stuff like Mike was talking about.
I mean, nobody's after a kid with a piece of gum or a
marijuana cigarette, right, But if you're arrested with a gun on Monday,
released, arrested with a gun on Tuesday, released, arrested with a gun
on Thursday, released, and then shot or shoot somebody on Saturday, it's
not a surprise anymore, right, It just it just seems to me from
a common sense perspective, these things are largely preventable, and that's kind of
where we get involved. So you know, as a trauma surgeon, if
we see a kid on a bike without a helmet, we're giving them a
bike helmet, you know, And this is this is kind of the bike
helmet for for the community, you know, Like you know, if you're
running around with an illegal gun, there ought to be some accountability for that.
And if and if you are doing that over and over, that's where
they're kind of the repeat offender and the dangerousness comes in. You're you're going
to get yourself into big trouble or you're going to hurt somebody that's kind of
my perspective on this, and you know, and politics aside. I think
the number the number one thing that government should do for us is public safety,
and I'm just getting the sense that I'm not seeing that as the number
one focus anymore. You know, I think we're doing a lot of things,
maybe for a lot of good reasons, but I think good luck finding
somebody in one of these neighborhoods that's going to come out and say they feel
safer now than they did five years ago, ten years ago. You see
a lot you probably you know, I would assume, go out and talk
to family members or friends of whoever the victim is. You know, they're
with their heart in their hand and scared. But are we starting to see
this this kind of behavior. And I can ask you as well, sergeant,
start to we we know in the city of Rochester there have been record
numbers of shootings, there's rumors of different things that have gone on. Certainly
it is very, very scary, and you've seen the numbers that go up
I think over the number of years in terms of even murders and who you
know, But are we starting to see it kind of spill out? Because
I've always had this theory that as the city goes, so go the suburbs.
Are you starting to see some of this behavior slowly make its way out
of out of the City of Rochester and into more of the community. I
mean, you are Oak County sheriff, so I would assume you see the
entire county. So what we what we see. What we're trying to show
in what what is happening is that crime in general. I gotta I gotta
graph over here that shows homicides in the city of Rochester, and twenty twenty
one there were eighty five, twenty twenty two there were seventy five, and
last year they were fifty eight. So we've gone down. So you know,
that's what that's what everybody sees is the downtick on that charge. But
what what we need to remember is that, you know, in two thousand
and seventeen they were twenty eight. Yeah, in twenty eighteen they were twenty
eight. We aren't winning right now. Fifty eight is completely unacceptable. I
mean, really one is unacceptable. But let's you know, let's operate within
our reach ability right here. Fifty eight is asinine. That's fifty eight dead
bodies. That's fifty eight grieving families, and it's you know, we do
you know, we see the occasional homicide outside of the city of Rochester.
It's predominantly within the city Rochester. But what I'm trying to I guess articulate
here is all of this other crime drives this. Yeah, you know you
talk about retail theft, right, I guess to most people there and very
reasonably so, they're two to completely separate categories. I will tell you in
my experience, the stolen car issue, so seeing you know, thirteen fourteen,
fifteen year old drivers of stolen cars hitting things and getting personally injured,
and to your point, hitting things in Brighton, you know, parenting.
Yeah, right, it doesn't take it doesn't take a long you know stretch
to think that if you're driving a stolen car, you know, fifty sixty
seventy miles an hour, you're going to get out of the city of Rochester
pretty quickly. And now you know, some poor guys driving down the street
and suddenly a car comes slamming into the side because you know, the fifteen
year old who's driving it can't drive a car at fifty miles an hour.
Right, you know, so you know, those kinds of things I think
you are seeing sneak out into the you know, into the county from the
city. And I can tell you, you know, from from my experience
over the years. You know, shootings are not unique to Rochester, and
we've had shootings ever since I came here. But we have homicides on a
Tuesday afternoon, you know, Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock, right broad daylight.
We have shootouts on a Wednesday at three in the afternoon. That's that's
different. That's a level of unabashed criminality that it's just I'm not used to
seeing in the city. And that is absolutely shifted over the last maybe five
seven years. So so for you, doc, what what sort of is
is the solution? There? There were years ago there was somebody who I
think has made a bad name for themselves in the city of Rochester over time.
But I had gone to college with this person, Adam mcvadd, and
Adam used to just say to me, he would come on and he would
say, we're gonna have a real problem because many of the young people today
are being raised by their grandparents, and the grandparents are dying off there's going
to be nobody there and it's going to kind of just be kids run and
loose. Now, I don't know if that's sort of what we're seeing now
or not, but what would be the solution. It feels like in some
way you almost need a like a parent to step in and go, hey,
cut it out. But I mean that's simplifying it to the to the
easiest right. You know. You know, I'm not a law enforcement expert,
so all that might correct me here, but it seems to me that
if you've put your faith in a judge, that judge should be able to
determine whether or not, you know, somebody coming before them is going to
be dangerous and you know, and if it's that kid who stole a pack
of Gama or a backpack or something silly like that, then yeah, you
use your discretion. But but if you're talking to somebody who is you know,
stolen large qualities with large quantities of items from you know, from a
big box store over the last month, over and over and over again,
at some point that has to stop. Somebody who's been you know, when
we talk about getting arrested with a gun, does it, I mean,
somebody has to chase that person. Yeah, it's a car chase, it's
a foot chase. Those people don't just stop and say, here's my illegal
gun, right, So there's a lot of drama that that gets you to
the point where you now found a suspect with an illegal gun, and we're
releasing those people almost immediately, and it just to me as a citizen,
it makes absolutely no sense. So, I mean, you know, not
necessarily, like Mike said, against bail reform, but there's got to be
some guide rails, you know, some common sense applied to these types of
situations. And you know, I'm hearing that those those you know, those
those guidances for judges exist and they're not being used. I'm not sure that's
the case, because you know, you have to put your faith in the
judges, and they're not they're not able to, you know, implement these
kinds of things for the people who really need, you know, in the
words of Sheriff bax Or a time out, you know, I think he
used that expression, and I think it's really true. You know, we
have you know, we have catalytic converter thefts that were an issue. We
have car thefts that were an issue. We have stores that can't possibly continue
to sustain the kinds of losses they're sustaining. Those costs are going to go
to the next guy who has to pay for that, or the stores are
going to leave, right you know, we're seeing that. You see an
you know, extension of that in places like San Francisco where businesses are just
picking up and leaving because they can't possibly tolerate that kind of lawlessness on a
regular basis, right, And it's it's kind of sad that to a certain
extent, it's happening here. And I think the consortium is made up of
a bunch of people who are looking at the exact same problem from a bunch
of different views, you know, And Mike made the point to say,
it's a diverse group. Not everybody agrees about the things we talk about.
There's a lot of disagreement, but on these core issues public safety, common
decency, you know, being held accountable for kind of you know, massive
theft, those kinds of things, I think everybody around the table thinks society
is going to be a better place when you do when you have that kind
of accountability in your in your in your cities, and your counties and your
state people are I'm sure listening, nodding along saying I agree. How do
they get involved? What is the next step? Who do we need to
plead this case to so to speak? Yeah, yeah, So before I
get into what we're doing, what I'll do is plug the website that we
have. It's our consortium n Y dot com, our oh u R Consortium
n Y dot com. And it's a very simple website in its infancy stages,
but there's a little red button on there that you can can click to
read our proposal what we want to see out of out of state law develop
and it's very it's four very simple issues. You know, we already talked
about two of them judges having the ability to detain people based upon their risk
to public safety a ka A dangerousness standard. Number two is being able to
hold the repeat offender. Number three is something and I was going to chime
in here when you guys were talking about this earlier. What we want is
clean law. So what you have are, like I said, six major
reforms to our justice system over five years that have occurred in any any sort
of mass overhaul like that is not going to to occur. Without confusion.
And that's what we're seeing right now. Sometimes, like you would indicated earlier,
built judges are just cutting people loose because maybe that's what the law tells
them to do. Right. Other times they're doing it because judges, lawyers,
cops, victims in suspects, and the list goes on. We're not
clear on the law, gotcha, nobody's clear on the law. Because so
you get the gray area so to speak, right, well, you've got
I don't think it offers a lot of gray area, to be honest with
you, but it's an unintended gray area. This is an unintended consequence of
all the reforms that have come down. They've just resulted in a lot of
confusion in some of its you know, intentional confusion, if you will,
But of a lot of it is just by you've got just such a massive
overhaul to a system that we're used to doing this way. But now we're
changing this in six months later, we're going to amend that you know,
bat reformat and of it elf thick off the top of my head has been
amended at least three times, not to mention racey age in a few of
the other reforms. So it's difficult to keep up with. So that's the
third topic we're asking for in in our proposal that you can view on our
consortium n y dot com. We want clean law. Let's let's distill this
down so that it's fair for everybody, including the suspects, including the people
who arresting. If you are doing a c will happen to you and b
could that should be made clear. It's only fair to everybody involved in the
system. And lastly, the this was kind of a late add on,
but it just made sense. Sheriff Baxter stood with with several members of the
state legislature, Senator Helming and Senator Ort this this proposal for elder parole came
out and it was just so unbelievable to the group. It was shocking that
we we had to include this in our proposal. Essentially, what that proposal
says is that if a person convicted of a crime has done at least fifteen
years of their sentence and they are fifty five years old, they are automatically
belligible excuse me, eligible for a parole hearing. I looked high and low
in that law. The Sheriff's Council looked high and low in that law.
The district Attorney and her staff looked through that law. We were unable to
find anywhere in there that had said, well except if you did this.
So that means guys like Mark Christie that killed Kley and Polton, when this
law passes, will be eligible for a parole hearing. I'm not saying he's
getting out, but he at least gets thet hearing right. So essentially,
what this law says is there is no longer life without parole in New York
State, and that is unacceptable. That is unacceptable. We're not talking about
people being held pre trial. We're talking about people being convicted of crimes that
have gone to serve a sentence, serve your time. So what I'm hearing
you say is you're you're almost looking You're looking for fair. Let's have a
fair look at the person committing the crime, be able to assess where they
are and then decide the punishment from there, and let's make things fair that
you know, Mark Christie probably shouldn't be getting it should be life without parole.
That's what you were sentenced to, not a fifty five after fifteen or
twenty years that you've been in it that that that would happen. I think
that, So who does this go to when you when you make these proposals,
Who's who's the decider of of what what happens or doesn't happen. And
I would assume it has to go to assembly members, state senators, right,
these sort of people then who then try to bring it and revise the
laws or make new laws. Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll jump in go.
So this is not a new effort. This has been going on now
for a little while. And the I'm sorry, and so this has been
going on for a little while, and and the people that's the people it's
going to have seen it, have discussed it. I have talked about it,
and there's been pushback. So for a number of political reasons, which
I don't totally understand that I'm not a politician. I don't want to be
a politician. But like I said that, that core value of protect,
you know, protect the citizens seems to be getting pushed to the side a
little bit here for for whatever reason. I can't really say that, but
the but these concepts are not new. People are not seeing these proposals for
the first time. And I think what we're doing is we're really trying to,
you know, expand the number of people who are supporting this. You
know, there's efforts downstate as well. I keep seeing, you know,
in New York City people are feeling unsafe, in the Five Boroughs are feeling
unsafe. That's not part of this consortium, but those voices are becoming more
and more organized and more and more. Uh, you know, I'm hoping
that at some point somebody is going to say we can't continue to, you
know, ignore those voices. And that's and I don't know where you're going
to go. Mike. I'm sorry I stepped on you there, but not
at all. But the concept that this is this some sort of a new
initiative, I mean this, you know, the folks involved have been pushing
this initiative and there's been there's been previous budget proposals, and there's been some
high ranking people talking about this, and it doesn't seem to get any traction.
So I think one of the reasons we're trying to be animated about this
is this needs a fair hearing and people with common sense need to start looking
at this legitimately. Let let's just take one brief moment, but then I
have questions that I'll ask you after twenty years of service, and then you
doc who's been seeing people come in for a quarter century to the in terms
of what we're seeing in society, and then what is the answer? We
talk about grassroots, We talk about all these things, and there's a phrase
that gained a lot of traction over the past couple of years that I feel
like, I don't know, but I feel like fuel some of what we
see today. We'll get to that next, but first, ah B TB
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get the Carlson hads one of the all time greats this weekend. Jim Florantine
for one show Tonight January eighteenth at seven thirty, two shows Tomorrow night Friday
January nineteenth, seven and nine, and again on Saturday, January twenty ath
seven and nine. The Great Jim Florentine. It was a tough time going
to lockdown. Man. I didn't have anyone. Man, I was fucking
going out of my mind. About four months in, I was so desperate.
I was on my driveway. I was so horny. I looked at
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I'm like, maybe I didn't do it. I'm just saying I've done
something similar to that. Like when I was in college, me and my
friends were at a gas issue where pump my gas. We're all drunk,
two thirty in the morning. I took the gas cap off and then make
my friend laugh. I put my penis in the gas. He's like,
yeah, what an asshole. You know, I didn't put in the tailpipe.
That's wrong. You know. Look, I can't defend what I did.
It was a long time ago. I was in college. I'm just
afraid this day and age, that car is gonna come out of woodwork and
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one of the greatest guitar riffs in rock, I really do. And I
asked who. I asked the doc for his favorite song we would bump with
it coming back, and he said this song, and I was a little
taken. I was like, wow, all right, but that Mark Knopfler
really underrated, right, good stuff? Yeah, really good stuff, really
good stuff. That's one of the few things I could listen to with my
kids in the car because otherwise their their tastes are completely different. But they
like this also. Yes, I had the same problem with my kids.
I was always uh more class. I love the Stones, and I like
some of the deeper stuff, and always singer songwriter kind of stuff. So
I got my youngest hooked on John Hyatt. We would sing Tennessee Plates and
he was a little baby. It was, you know, one of the
cleaner songs that you can get away with the kids. That was always fun.
All right, So I'm mispronouncing that it's the Consortium, am I consortup?
Consort she up? And I could be mispresnusd no no, no,
no, no, no. You guys both have said it. The same
way I have mispronounced it SOURCEUM for safe Communities. So I really feel like
there is a great lack of respect. I feel like there is a lack
of I don't know, even self respect with people these days. You know,
when you go back, people to always go hey, you see pictures
of stadiums in the nineteen forties, the World Series, and everybody was in
suits and dresses, and you just almost held yourself to a higher standard.
I get it. Styles change, people change all that, but there is
something about in our society where we really have lost a lot of respect.
I mean, we can go on and see anything from anywhere. We watch
people melt down, We watch people throwing food back at people at you know,
at fast food. You see it all. It is a level of
disrespect for humanity that I have never seen. Now, we could say it's
always gone on and we just never saw it, but I don't believe that.
And I don't know if some times, you know, it's the copycat
theory of you know, when somebody is doing this, so therefore I'm gonna
do it as well, or I want the attention, or hey, this
is the cool thing to do online. I'm not sure. He saw.
It was something that I thought was horrific and came up on the podcast just
the other night, the knockout game where people would just walk down the street
and knock somebody out. And I would always say, you know, I've
instructed boxing for many years. It's not so much the punch as it is
the fall, right, the fall is what can really screw up. I
mean, Doc, you could probably speak to that. It's you know,
I've known people who have gone out to answer the phone, slipped off a
curb and hit their head and wound up in rehab with brain swelling and all
kinds of things. It's the fall that does it. You know, a
lot of times if you have an elderly parent or grandparent, you worry about
them. The fall is sometimes worse than whatever made them fall whatever. You
know, they may have had a momentary heart thing that made them. Okay,
we can figure that out, but the fall and they not they're they're
they're not going around that that's the bad stuff. And you said it yourself.
If a boxer is hitting a boxer, you have defensive movies. You
know it's coming right. You're not some person walking down the streets and defenseless.
Just that stuff is crazy. But one of the things that I really
was very puzzled by, and I was more puzzled because again I was really
hoping that the idea just had a bad title and that was defund the police,
And I thought, could you rename it to something like reallocate? If
you feel like there is not a communication, enough communication or enough why I
don't know what, but between the citizens and the police force, then why
aren't we building that up. There used to be youth leagues that the police
would be coaches in and and different things. I think John Wallace, who
went on to be a star for the New York Knicks, certainly a Syracuse
star, had started out in the police leagus. Those budgets. Obviously,
things change and we have to make choices, and those budgets were cut.
But now all of a sudden we're talking about, well we want to reallocate.
Well, what are you doing in place of this? Then? I
mean in the city of Rochester. And this will get a little political,
and I apologize, but now you're going to put people in charge of basically
disciplining the police. The accountability board for people who have never done any kind
of law enforcement, and I feel like all of that sends a message of
you're the enemy. Yeah, And I'm sorry, I don't mean to be
so frank about it, but it really feels like at times that that's become
the enemy. Well, just before Mike jumps in, because I know he
has an opinion on this, so I told you earlier. We do a
lot with something called Project Exile. Yes, And one of the things that
Project Exile does is they're in the community in the summer, right, So
they pick neighborhoods and they do a lot of work through what's called tips And
maybe you've heard about that, Yes, the programs where they set up in
neighborhoods and they do a lot of work and they talk to a lot of
neighborhood folks. And what's interesting to me, the rit Criminal Justice School does
kind of an analysis of the questions that are asked in the neighborhood. And
the folks in the neighborhood do not disrespect the police. When you go and
you talk to people at their door. They need the police, they want
the police, They respect the police. So I don't know what voice is
out there being portrayed as the majority, But when you talk to citizens,
especially people who live in these high risk neighborhoods, they want support, They
want the police, They want to know are they there, who their officers
are. They want those people to be part of their community and they want
to support them. Well, I believe that. So I believe that so
much. But I do wonder that is there also a fear in those communities
to be the one to turn to the police. Well, so I think
one of the benefits of the way that that the thing is set up in
the summer is people come to your door and they're talking to you at your
door, so you're not calling the police. There's not a police car parked
in front of your house, but you have an opportunity to interact with the
police. I think it was a very positive message that the neighborhoods that you
would think would be the least likely to trust the police, when you talk
to people who live there, there is actually significant trust. I think you're
not hearing that, so I don't you know, I don't know what you
were going to say, but but I was surprised by that. And I've
looked at the reports that were generated by rit because the credital Justice students go
through and look at the work that's done there, and I thought that was
actually very surprising because these are areas where I would you know, I would
initially have thought exactly what you said. But when you when you talk to
people who live there, they they want safety. They want their kid to
be able to go to the go to school, or go to the store
without being without being threatened. And they're having trouble making that happen. And
that's like in the city, maybe not as much in the county, but
certainly, you know, I think, well, that seems to be where
you're seeing most of the people that are coming to need your services and your
skills. Well. So so for us, it's a little different because we're
we're you know, we're a regional trauma center, so we have seventeen eighteen
counties that send patients to us. Okay, so the shootings and stabbings come
predominantly from the larger city areas, you know, but we definitely, you
know, you get some stuff around the borders. We got a lot of
car accidents, and some of those cars are stolen cars, you know,
so those those things have a little less less boundaries associated with them. But
what I was surprised at having looked at this issue was, you know,
there is a baseline level of support, and it's not talked about, you
know, for whatever reason that the public of you know, the what you're
hearing in the news the loudest voice, the loud loudest voices or anti police
defund the police, and and you know, don't trust your local police officer.
But you know, I think I think they're you know, you interact
with people all the time, and I don't think you get that sense from
the general population. No, I I certainly do not. I want to
so badly right now play for you guys. Bill Burr, the comedian talking
about and I don't know if anybody saw this, but he talked about black
Lives matter and how white suburban women, as he says, swung their gucci
footed boot over to that. And I don't mean to be I don't mean
this in any disingenuous way. I'm just saying what the doctor so eloquently just
put forth is the communities themselves that have the biggest problems want the police.
The voices we are hearing are people who are not living in those communities saying
defund the police. But that's that's a problem. And I'll say this,
and this would be the only thing I would say in defense, is somebody,
I don't think that just because you don't live in a community that that
precludes you from having an opinion on the way law enforcement activities are conducted in
a location. So I'll give them that much. However, when you do
live in a community. However, when you do live in a community,
well, you know, I work in the city of Rochester. I don't
live there, but I spend eight ten hours a day in the city of
Rochester. I walk the streets in the city of Rochester, so I feel
like I have some valid input. But where I was going was at exactly
what the doctor said. I have a pretty good amount of interaction with people
from different neighborhood groups and associations and victims of crime from all around the County
of Monroe, to include the city of Rochester. I've never had anybody tell
me, you know, I wish you guys could get out of out of
my neighborhood. It doesn't it doesn't happen often. I'm not saying it doesn't
happen at all, but I've never heard it. And I think that what
the doctor said earlier, you've got some loud voices, some loud voices offering
input. I don't know what the motivating factor behind it is. Maybe maybe
it's because they truly believe what they're saying, but maybe it's because right now
it's you know, it's the thing that's trending online and here is a massive
marketing campaign created under the guise of equal justice for all. But what they
don't realize is by taking police out of neighborhoods, you're creating that in a
quality because the police are there to provide a service and keep people safe.
And when you start removing that service and neighborhoods become more dangerous. You know,
the grafts over here that just creates and equities and injustices. So as
you're as you're walking the streets of Rochester and maybe other community in Monroe County,
what is the answer what is needed there? Where we talk about let's
say money being put forth in certain areas, money is thrown at things all
the time, right, I mean, we could look at one of the
biggest ones would be urban school districts, not just the city of Rochester,
anywhere let's say New York State are trying all these different things that it's like
anything against the wall that doesn't stick. But it sounds like this, uh,
this plan that you guys are putting together has some kind of real Hey,
here's something we believe will work. We've seen it work here, or
we've seen it work there. We've talked to other communities. What are some
of these things? So so, about a year and a half ago,
I did a research project for Sheriff Baxter. We had a very well,
I shouldn't say it's very small, but we had another group and he told
me I'm fired from making decisions on names of groups because this one was called
the Coalition for Community Safety. Okay, but this group was much different.
We stepped out of our comfort zone a little bit and we got with some
folks actually, some from some state lawmaker's offices and their staff, and we
we drafted a white paper on sort of a social oriented program that we thought
could help some families in need, going back to what you said earlier about
some of these kids that needed a father or a mother to wrap their arm
around them. So so we got with this group and sort of created a
proposal that we could get behind. Is it relates to to coming up from
that that end and the prevention side, you know, says it all the
time, prevention, prevention, enforcement, recovery. I said it twice,
not because it was a mistake. That is the most important part of the
solution. So there's a reason we say it twice. But it also goes
back to another old adage. The best time to plant the tree is fifteen
years ago. So the prevention efforts that we're starting on right now, we're
going to realize in ten years. We're going to realize them in fifteen years
when these become excellent people going on to do great things in their communities and
their spheres of influence. But the thing is that we're seeing we can do
both of those things. It doesn't have to be one or the other,
you know, Bill Bratt and the old New York City Police commissioner said one
time, and I always mess this up, so I'm going to ask you
to edit me if I really mess it up. But you know, public
safety and fair treatment under the law are not mutually exclusive items, and they
can be achieved simultaneously. And we wholeheartedly believe that in this group. So
yes, let's do all of those things at to help these kids at home,
to help mother, single mother, sing you know, poverty, all
of those things. Yes, we want to see those efforts made. And
this white paper included a an appendix that I think was about eighteen pages long,
just resources in Rochester, New York. We are incredibly, incredibly rich
with resources, yea, in the greater Rochester area. I agree. So
let's keep doing those things, and more importantly, let's hone in on the
ones at work and apply, like you said, funding to the ones at
work. Well, there were some great things. I remember a reverend that
I am forgetting his name, but it was I can read was the program?
It was Bishop but David Singleton, David Yes, Yes, he's a
great man. Yes, a firefighter, Okay, and he and I remember
having him on the radio and people would do it and it was just a
great way to go and give a little extra help to young people first second
grade, maybe kindergarten and giving them a chance to read and helping them learn
to read, and how important that is and maybe in some of the suburbs.
I'll just tell you, like you know, we in terms of that,
you go to the city of Rochester, right, and we look at
one of the poorest school districts in the country, and then you go fifteen
minutes in the other direction and you've got Pittsford who for many, many,
many many years, only until recently my kids went through this, it was
half day kindergarten. They didn't offer full day kindergarten. And the reason was
the kids were getting read to at home, they were learning to do there
was just more input. Now, look, there's a lot going on.
Poverty brings all kinds of problems. But if we want to solve this and
if we really believe that we can help, and the Consortium believes that's part
of it is getting in there and helping. Education is a key thing.
And boy, this was something I always always hold so big. As we
talk about self esteem and self teams, get a kid to win, you
can push them even further. You're the best coaches were the ones that yelled
at you when you won, screamed about all the mistakes you made. You
could handle it because you won felt great. They were a little more compassionate
when you lost because they could. But it's that kind of thing. It's
almost like you just need some coaches along the way, and boy, you
can change things quickly. And when somebody feels good about themselves, they can
run through walls anybody, I don't care who they are, where they came
from. They start feeling good about themselves, they can do really really great
things. And I think that there's a cycle of all kinds of things.
It comes into depression and all of it right, because I feel like there's
no win, there's no way out. The world sucks. I can't get
anywhere. But boy, we start, you know, going in and just
those programs like I can Read were really wonderful things that had just were grassroots.
I mean we talked about grassroots. I don't think there was any real
funding with that. I think it was just simply like you got a book
at home that your kids aren't reading anymore, bringing in and we we've got
a first grader who left to try Yeah, yeah, and uh. In
that part particular program, what the bishop did was he was getting peers to
come into the schools and he'll look link them up with one kid, you
know that was your peer for the school year. And all he asked for
is an hour a week. You go into the school, you team up
with a kid, and he told a great story about the former Rochester City
fire chief. I think it's John Coffield actually got a non verbal kid with
autism to by the end of year two. He wouldn't give up on the
kid. He got him to read. Wow. Yeah. So you hear
those stories and and you know, I get as encouraged as as I can
see that you are. And those are just incredibly powerful stories. You know,
those prevention efforts are so important in this group, you know has not
lost sight of that. We we want those people to do that work,
and we will stand with them whenever, whenever they need us. Uh,
and we'll support those for it's one hundred percent. I've always believed that no
matter what in life, if you wanted to do something, that people would
meet you halfway. If there's somebody in one of these communities, as the
doctor was talking about, who really wants to make a difference in is just
looking for help, Hey how do I fix my street my block? People
will meet you halfway. I mean, there's a bunch of people who want
to see a better life for everybody. That's what we're talking about, a
better life. So one of the things that strikes me is interesting is we
really do have a lot of resources in this community and even in like you
know, when you look at the state budget, a lot of money is
allocated to this problem. So so what I like to you know, you
can make fun of me for the medical side of this, but I have
kind of an analogy that I you know, when I talk about this that
I try to push a little bit and I look at the issue with crime
similar to like a wound that's not healing. Yeah, so you know,
most people are familiar with what a wound looks like, especially when that's not
healing. And the way you get a wound to heal, number one is
you cut the dead stuff off right, and then once that stuff is off,
then you apply Like you know, we're living in a modern age.
There's a lot of new medications and potions and things like that that you can
put on that wound to help the healthy tissue heal. So, you know,
similar to what the Consortium's trying to do, Like you pick the most
dangerous elements in your community, they just got to go. You cannot keep
them out and about, and then you take all the resources the money that
you know, all of the other programs and you apply them to where you
think they're going to do the most good to try and heal what's left.
And you know, it's a little bit of an analogy that maybe it doesn't
necessarily land all the time, but uh, you know, but there's a
lot of people really care about this and money is being expended here. But
I think, you know, the truly hardened criminals are not going to stop
doing what they're doing, right, and so this is so there's your problem
in the commissue as a mischief you so, you know, so you know,
on a wound, you want to take that stuff off right, and
then you apply all these things to what's left because you really want a healthy
community, you want a healthy tissue, you want to be able to heal,
so you know. So I think that's not different from kind of the
overall concept of looking at things like a dangerousness standards. Doesn't mean everybody has
to be, you know, to the fullest extent of the law, but
the ones who are truly out there causing real mischief, and it's the minority
of people, it's absolutely not a big number, but it's you know,
those people are running loose all what's the old adage it's a simple one.
One bad apple spoils the bunch, so to speak, right, I mean
it's sort of what you're saying to this. So is this falling on deaf
ears and by that I mean with the leaders, is it is the resistance
you said you mentioned pushback before a little bit. I mean, do they
need to come and hear and talk almost like a you know, some kind
of a board meeting where people come up and say, hey, this is
what's happening in my community and we need your help. And we've had those
meetings. Yeah, Like I said, this group again in October of twenty
two and we met with several different members of the Rochester Majority delegation and they've
heard us, they've heard you know, they've heard our proposal for the ability
to detain people that are dangerous, people that are repeat defenders, and of
course what what we currently have is the risk of flight. There have been
meetings, not only with the Consortium and Sheriff Baxter Is is met with just
about each and every one of them individually. We see no action. Some
of the reason that we are offered is that majority of policy making decisions are
done downstate. Uh, that's where you know the power exists within the legislature
and and that's we understand that. But what we're looking for to occur here
is our representation in this area needs to hear what with their community and their
constituents are asking for right and we believe we offer a good representation of that.
I did a quick pull before I came here, and this letter when
we sent it off to this list of New York state legislative representative representatives along
with the governor and a couple members of her cabinet, I think it had
about eighteen hundred signatures on it when we sent it. We continue to keep
the opportunity for people to sign on and support of those initiatives, and I
think we're around twenty three hundred signatures on it right now, and we intend
to keep it wide open with no end in sight. What's that website again?
Yeah, that website is our consortium hy dot com. Oh, you
are our consortium Inway dot com. So make it simple. That's teasing.
I lost. I lost the Yeah, you know, but I would I
would argue that, you know, this effort, what we're talking about here
is an upstate New York effort. Yes, the issues are the same on
state. So when you say that, you know the power brokers are downstate.
If they talk to their constituents, they're not going to hear a different
story. You know, you'd be very interesting you ask somebody, let's have
a press conference. Find me ten people that you think are safer now than
they were five years ago. Let's put them up here and ask them some
questions. Good luck find and you know, finding ten people that live in
these neighborhoods that are feeling safer, feeling less likely that their car is going
to get stolen, that their kids going to get molested on the way to
you know, interfered with on their way to the school or shopping or something
like that. You know, so I think what we're doing here is we're
laying some railroad tracks for other people to follow. But you know, I
think the problems are not unique to Rochester or Utica or Elmira, and just
piggyback off what the doc said, we absolutely are laying those railroad tracks.
So on January thirty, a contingency from this group, the Consortia for Safe
Committees, We're heading out to Buffalo, New York to meet with a very
powerful group out there to essentially give them the blueprint, and we're going to
we're taking this regional so Buffalo efforts begin the end of this month. Uh,
and there will be a couple folks there from the Onondaga County area at
that as well, at that meeting as well, and then we will start
shifting east down the throu Way with intentions to take it downstate eventually as well.
Yeah, at least. So what I mean, what we how do
you change? How do you affect improvement? You know, the first step
is organization. You just you have to be organized about it. And that's
uh, you know, that's what we've spent the last you know, a
little over a year doing, is essentially building out an organization here people that
you know, share the same concerns. And it's very easy to find those
people, quite frankly, because everybody in our communities are How frustrating has it
been to try to get this you see it? Well, well i'll jump
in you. Yeah, Mike's good at correcting me. But I think it's
actually been encouraging. I think the political side has been extremely frustrating because there's
some pretty common sense here, but to find such a cross section of the
population truly thinking that this is the right thing. Yep, you know.
And you know, one of the things Mike really didn't talk about was the
fact that this consortium has very few uniforms, very few uniforms, because one
of the initial criticisms was that, well, gee, you know, law
enforcement's not supportive of this. So I think the sheriff was very attuned to
that. So this is not a group of cops saying we don't like this.
This is a group of citizens. These are people who are directly impacted
by these policies. Who are you know, the police. You know,
the sheriff and his team is providing some organization to the structure, but the
voices are not. These are people who are living in these areas under these
conditions, and they feel this is the right thing. So I think from
that point of view, it's encouraging, Like this is not just you know,
Mike Samara and Todd Baxter out there talking about stuff. This is you
know, if you get thirty people in the room, they're going to agree
on most of these things. You get fifty people in the room, they're
going to agree on most of these things, no matter what political background,
no matter what racial background, no matter what neighborhood they're from. So I
think that part has been encouraging. Now you can't people to hear it right,
and you can't have life liberty in the pursuit of happiness when you feel
like you can't even leave your house in a safe manner. Right there was
you know where the studio is is right across from the Fairport Police Department,
and a friend of yours, chief say Chief Baxter. Chief Barnes had come
over and we were doing a podcast for Fairport and he had victims of a
crime in here. They are an older couple who lives in the village who
had their trucks stolen out of their driveway and found in the city right,
all banged up and all and then all the expense that then is laid at
their feet, all that frustration, all that and just the feeling of someone
else when they get the truck back and it's all worked on, had been
in it, all that unsafe feeling as you're talking about, You're right.
I think if you go around, you're going to find most people would think
that this is a overdue over Most people didn't ask to be put No,
they didn't ask for you know, they're mining their business presumably. I don't
know these people, but you know, we had something similar. We had
a woman her first name was Barb and I can't think of her last name.
Similar thing. She out in Chilai Gardens, had her vehicles stolen.
Barba just retired. Barbara retired like six months prior to that. The only
thing she was focused on was golfing, and all of a sudden she comes
out and her car's gone. She had to come out of retirement go back
to driving school buses to finance a new vehicle. That's not right. No,
that's not right. You know, she was one of I just got
the final numbers in. There were four thousan five hundred and eleven stolen vehicles
in the County of Monroe last year. That's four thy five hundred and eleven
victims. Yeah, that's a lot of people. It's a lot of people
that did not ask to be put into the involved in the criminal justice system.
And more importantly, these are the first people that are forgotten about justice
begins to occur. I would also guess that that's not four thousand individual criminals
going out and stealing one car. Oh, absolutely so. You know,
this gets this gets right back to what you were talking about. Right,
Somebody has to you know, this has to be controlled. Yeah, right,
somebody has to do this. And and I think, no matter what
your political affiliations are, beliefs at the base, this is common sense,
right. I mean, no matter where you are on the spectrum, you
don't want your car stolen while you're inside arguing about it, or you know,
or anything else like not. You know, I'm using car theft as
an example, but I mean the retail theft that we're seeing around here.
I mean, this is gonna it's gonna change prices. It's already changing prices.
It's changed, it's going to chase stores away. Right. Those are
things that directly impact the community. And if you're a smaller store, you
can't keep you can't keep sustaining that kind of theft. So you know,
you bring up retail that Here's what our proposal is not looking to achieve.
We're not looking to lock up the kid that goes into the home depot and
you know, steals fifty bucks worth of stuff. He's never been arrested before.
Nobody wants nobody's looking to lock this kid up in jail to build there.
But what we do want to do is, you know, when the
individual coming out of the home depot with a shopping cart full of mquita sahs
to sell them gets arrested for the fourth time in two months for doing that,
we can't just continue to give these people pieces of paper, I call
them promise papers to come back to court and just keep and expect they're not
going to keep re engaging in that. So it's it's you know, everybody
uses that old saying that I think it was Albert Einstein said, doing the
same thing over and over again expecting a different result is insanity. I think
that's a great opening for the You know that you guys just recently looked at
your appearance tickets right right, and correct me if I'm wrong. Fifty percent
of the appearance tickets you give go to people who don't come back to court.
You go and chase them, You go and chase them, you find
them, you give them yet another appearance ticket because the original crime was just
an appearance stick. And so you're kind of chasing your tail. So that
we now know, I mean, you know, for whatever reason, these
laws were changed well back way back when we now have a track record to
so that a bunch of the stuff just doesn't work and it's time to tweak
these things. Yeah, and that's and that's what we're looking for, Doc.
And you know that simple tweaks. We're not looking to My boss says
it all the time, throw the baby out with the bath water. We're
not looking to do that. There is some merit to the tenants and the
intentions of this legislation that was crafted. We think that people deserve to be
treated fairly and that nobody should be locked away for minor crimes while they could
be out, you know, providing for their family, going to work,
going to school, et cetera, et cetera. But there just there has
to be a level of distinction where we can sit down and reasonably say this
kid needs a timeout or that guy needs a time out. You had I
thought it was Sheriff Baxter told me over the summer that there was one young
person. Could it be involved in twelve car thefts? Oh that's very believable.
I hope I'm not misspeaking, but not necessarily always the driver, but
involved in in some way to what the doc has said. Yeah, this
isn't Okay, that's the you know that needs the time out or maybe longer,
maybe a nice long time out. There was we stopped a car I
want to say it was in Penfield somewhere over the summer, and there were
seven kids in there and a gun. When did that become something that we
are accepting? And I believe all but one of them were cut loose at
two o'clock in the morning. We had to argue with a parent to come
down and get their kid. I mean, these things are occurring, and
when there isn't an appropriate infrastructure for the kid to go home, gotcha.
You know I could tell you if I was sixteen years old and I was
out at two o'clock in the morning and stolen a car, I wouldn't want
to go home. I'd rather go to jail. But you know the problem
is there's there's no infrastructure to support the kid at home. And what we're
asking for isn't to go and lock this kid up in the juvie for the
next six months because he did this. We want to lock him up for
a little bit and get him the help he needs. We have all this.
I mean, I told you earlier I had that white paper with eighteen
pages of of of resources available to people in this in this county. Let's
put those to work for this kid. And then, you know, recognizing
the need for that, the county executive found a little bit of a work
around and he rolled out what's called the JETS program for some some more rapid
intervention. Uh. And we're doing the best we can utilizing that, and
that's proving to be a pretty a pretty good model. But what we need
is the ability, no matter what a person's age is, to slow them
down. Whether it's because they're doing you know, repeat offenses and stealing large
amounts of property from stores, or if it's the third time they've been caught
with a gun in the last eight months, that person's dangerous. And I
don't mean illegal gun, I mean a illegal gun. If you're carrying an
illegal gun around town somewhere, you're you're dangerous. There's a reason you're carrying
that gun. Yeah, and usually you're not a great shot. The doc
get a great line the other day. I meant to text you, he
said. Sometimes the first hurdle is putting the person in the X ray an
ID in which one's the new round, in which one it's not uncommon that
we're taking care of people who have been shot more than once. And then
when you're trying to figure out where that this bullet go, you're taking an
X ray to try and figure it out, and you have to sort out,
you know, was this bullet here from the last time, And it
changes what we do, It changes how we do it. And you know,
it's not always, but it happens with some frequency, and it's not
just a Rochester problem. It happens in big cities all over your That just
shows you that there is again a small group that it's committing most of the
crimes. Yeah, yeah, and I'm and I'm I can't say that enough,
and I thank you for saying it. Now. We know who a
lot of these people are, and we know there are a lot of people
that get arrested and aren't bad people. And in fact, I would venture
to say the vast majority of people that become involved with the justice system and
sometimes land themselves in jail, they're not bad people. They've made some mistakes,
and quite often they go on to correct those mistakes and leave live highly
you know, successful in meaningful lives. But there's a few hundred people in
our in our area of of Monroe County that are bad people. Those people,
frankly need to be able to be detained when they go out and exhibit
this sort of behavior like shooting up houses. The other night, I think
a house got shot up in a in an elderly woman was hit by It's
you know that didn't happen. I don't. Maybe I just didn't watch the
news enough when I was younger, but I don't remember those sorts of things
occurring. It didn't on a widespread basis in nineteen ninety five. It just
it didn't, which doesn't seem that long ago, which shows how old I
am. That's what you say when you're old, but that's just yesterday.
But it doesn't. I mean, we're not talking all that long ago.
But it is a generation, right, So within a generation we've seen things
changed drastically and not necessarily for the good. So again, I think,
how do people get involved in this to make a difference, lend their voice
or at least their signature, to try to make some change to the laws
that will directly impact this. And I think your analogy, as much as
you're a doctor Nerd, was fantastic now I really do. We're you're talking
about cutting off and then you know, making the wound heal. How do
we do that? And it is getting rid of the bad stuff, But
that would be changing laws, and I think when the majority speaks, that's
when things start to change. You've got to get those voices heard. So
that's and that's what we're looking for. Bill. We need some legislative help
here. We're not again talking about a total rewrite of these laws. We're
talking about maintaining these tenants, yes, and making some small adjustments to improve
public safety. And that is this group's mission, in a very short sentence,
improvements to public safety. So how do people help? You can start
by signing on to our our initiatives at our consortium ny dot com. But
also more than that, if you want to take it a step further.
You know, everybody in Monroe County and in this area is represented by two
levels of state government, and that's your New York State Senator and your New
York State assemblyman. Uh And you can very easily go online and you know,
find out who your state representatives are, and you can call their office
and tell them, hey, I you know I heard about what they're talking
about on the Bill Moran podcast, and I looked into it a little bit
and I I think that makes sense, and I'd like you to support that,
you know, in your role as an assembly person or senator in Albany.
I I would like my voice to be heard to me. That's the
frustrating part is the political aspect of it, especially when you've gone out with
Project Exile and I've seen the data from those questions asked in the communities that
are most affected by this kind of crime or gun violence. But they want
something, So why aren't we making the changes? Who The resistance to this
is sometimes I feel like things don't change until someone with some power gets affected,
you know, which sounds terrible and I would never want that to happen,
but you know what I'm saying, like, until you've lived it,
sometimes we don't make the change. We live in a bubble or we think,
ah, well that's just over there, and that's not really the case,
and it's one example of a bigger problem, a systemic problem, and
that's not And then all of a sudden something happens and you think, oh,
you get hit by somebody who stole the car, and this you find
out that that kid had been picked up five other times for the same kind
of crime. Wasn't that time, right, you know? And and the
worst part of it is that kid's fifteen and really had an opportunity, had
somebody done sooner to prevent not only the tragedy you're looking at right now,
but the direction this kid is heading in. We're not doing anybody any favors,
you know. So it's just that, I mean, that's kind of
the goal. And I think, you know, to bring it back to
the consortium, the fact that you know, you have thirty forty people around
the table, all with different backgrounds, all with completely different ideas, all
thinking that we're on the right track here. Yeah, you know, we
want that fifteen year old not to make that bad decision to begin. Oh,
and you want to see the kid's meeting successful. But once you get
once you get in that car and you run over a baby, you know,
in a carriage and a corner somewhere in a suburb close close to the
city, that there's no coming back from that. No, there's not,
you know. And and like like Mike said, you know, on the
medical side, it's all about prevention, right prevention, prevention, prevention.
So this is something that's just the writings on the wall. You can see
these bad things are going to happen. It might not happen today, but
there's just no way that these scenarios are going to play out well. And
that's that's what this is all about. Is there a way for people who
may be listening to actually go to these meetings become part of the consortium?
I I don't or so it's a large group, and so I'm trying short
answer larger. Short answer, short answer is yes, and we are always
looking for more input. We by no means anybody in this group. Nobody
thinks they're the smartest person in the room. And if somebody raises their hand
and says, hey, what do you what do you think about this?
You know we are We're all ears. And that's the best thing about this
group. We truly believe it's an all encompassing group and that we are representatives
of of just the myriad of folks that live throughout Monroe County and the different
positions that they hold. So yes, So if somebody does want to come
to a meeting of the consortium or say communities, you can get in contact
with us via that website when you sign on to that letter, and just
indicate you know that you are interested in that. The beautiful thing about this
this group, we never meet just to have a meeting either. We don't
have quarterly meetings or bi weekly or monthly meetings. We meet when we have
something to talk about. Lately, we've got a lot to talk about.
So we met back in December, and we've got a meeting in Buffalo in
January, and we'll be scheduling one for the Roster group probably in early to
mid February. So yeah, long answer to your question, absolutely, yeah,
that people can joy well. I think this is great. I'm really
happy to learn about it, nice to meet both of you, and I
think it's something that the community needs right. It needs to be heard,
it needs more. It sounds like this needs more support or more voices behind
it, because it seems like a lot of people do agree with it.
It's just common sense. Yeah, thank you for that. It's good to
get a little bit of validation from folks in all Anes and we very much
appreciate the opportunity to come talk about this, and we are speaking for many
other people in this group. It's not just the two of us. And
you know, so you sit down with anybody from that group, you're going
to get down to the same facts. We might get to them differently because
we look at things from a different perspective, but at the core, we
all believe the same thing. And we want our communities to be safe.
We want our neighboring communities to be safe. We want this nonsense not to
happen, right, you know, And I got to believe that people who
represent us should want that also, So can't we get there? What do
we have to do to get there? Right? And we want to make
a better community. We want to make a better overall state. We want
to want people to be here, not leave here. And I think that's
a big thing for doctor Mark gesting for Sergeant Zimira. I'm Bill Moran.
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