Rochester police and Free the People ROC protesters managed to co-exist for two nights in a row over the Labor Day Weekend. The first night church elders from Spiritus Christi and other churches stood as a buffer between the Black Lives Matter protesters and police before the Public Safety Building on Sunday night.
On Monday night, things grew tense when someone threw a water bottle at police, but the demonstrators restrained the throwers and things remained calm, although police surrounded the front of the building and flanked the crowd. No tear gas or pepper spray was used either night, and nobody was arrested unlike the nights before.
In previous nights a number of people were arrested and people were hit with pepper balls and teargas, including County Legislator Rachel Barnhart and City Council Members Mary Lupien and Mitch Gruber.
Mayor Lovely Warren on Sunday held a news conference with Chief La’Ron Singletary and The Rev. Myra Brown of Spiritus Christi. In it, Chief Singletary expressed his support of people’s right to peacefully demonstrate, and the Mayor and Brown announced their plan for church elders to stand as a buffer between the demonstrators and police, which apparently worked.
Both Mayor Warren and Chief Singletary said they won’t be resigning, which is a key demand of the BLM protesters.