The Rochester Police Department is in the final stages of a reorganization that could see several specialized units eliminated in an effort to cover problems caused by chronic short staffing.
Those problems are expected to get significantly worse in coming months as dozens of officers file for retirement after covid-bonus and retroactive-pay disbursements are made.
The reorganization hits a department struggling through its third year of turmoil following civil upset over the death of a man in custody, the sacking of a police chief and the departure of his command group, a new mayor, a protracted chief search, and record and near-record homicide years. The department is further plagued by an antagonistic anti-police faction on City Council, bail and juvenile-offender laws which make catching criminals almost meaningless, a hare-brained plan to have academics turn an algorithm loose on all body-worn camera video in search of cops who might do wrong in the future, and a city culture of open and flagrant lawbreaking.
On top of all of that, there is the fact that the on-duty execution of Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz last summer quickly faded from the public consciousness and the murder of retired Officer William Booker remains unsolved and largely forgotten.
In short, these are tough times for the Rochester Police Department as its officers are stretched to cover patrol shifts that would normally require a far larger force. This is what defunding the police looks like, and these are the problems it creates.
Which gets to the likely reorganization.
According to people familiar with the situation, Chief David Smith and his executive team are considering eliminating all or some of the following units or assignments: Fourth Platoon, the Tactical Unit, the Mounted Patrol, the Traffic Unit and special units of homicide and narcotics investigators.
None of this is a good idea. Each of these organizations exists for a reason and was created to meet a particular need. The loss of each will eliminate some degree of expertise and focus from the department’s services. Again, none of this is a good idea – but there may not be a better idea. With X number of officers and Y number of shifts, with X small and shrinking and Y large and growing, there’s a point where it becomes a math problem with a pretty clear answer.
Simply put, there may not be a choice.
Probably the evening news will focus on the loss of the Mounted Patrol, because horses are pretty and they have file video, but the biggest impact will come if the Sixth Floor decides to eliminate Fourth Platoon and the Tactical Unit. Fourth Platoon is an overlap shift that works from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., covering the end of Third Platoon – 3 to 11 p.m. – and First Platoon – 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Doubling up on officers during the hours of peak criminal activity is a very smart thing, but it also eats staffing hours that the looming retirements are going to make disappear. The Tactical Unit is a special operations group of officers who focus specifically on troubled areas and troubled people. Less 911 chasing and more proactive policing. It is an excellent tool, and a near religion to its members, and it was the Tactical Unit to which the last two officers killed on duty belonged. The loss of the Tactical Unit would be a heavy, heavy hit, but it would also free up a lot of shifts.
Under discussion is breaking up homicide and narcotics investigation into east-side, west-side based work, instead of as part of citywide specialized organizations. In this scenario, some also believe the plan would be to have investigators more broadly handle different types of cases, with less specialization. For fans of old cop shows – less “Homicide: Life On The Street” and more “NYPD Blue.”
None of this is confirmed, the police department is selective in which reporters it talks to and the preference out of City Hall seems to be to talk to nobody about anything substantive. But this is what is generally believed by several to be what’s under consideration at the police department, with the chief announcing his decisions as soon as this week.
This is crisis management – a crisis of lawlessness and poorly crafted law in the midst of an acute shortage of police officers. When you set out to break the criminal justice system, this is what it looks like. And this is the Rochester Police Department scrambling to pick up the pieces.