Colin,

Didn’t know if you had heard about the murder of a (white) policeman here in Rochester last week by a black man. Daryl Pierson was just 32 years old and just returned to the job on Tuesday after rehabbing for several month from a workplace injury.

He leaves a wife, 4 year old son and and infant daughter. This was the first Rochester policeman killed on duty since 1959.The guy (black) who shot him was just out of prison and had jumped parole. This occurred in one of the many violent neighborhoods in the city of Rochester.

Turns out this guy had a long rap sheet which included armed robbery, for which the victim couldn’t understand why he wasn’t contacted to testify. Because of a plea bargain, the perp was out on the street and able to kill this policeman, rather than serving his rightful debt to society (see his interview here) : http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S3551793.shtml Here’s a link to the numerous newspaper articles on this terrible event: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/search/daryl%20pierson/ What they didn’t say much about, but I saw it on the twitter feeds from the police scanner transmissions, was that at the time this occurred, there was a big crowd of residents gathering, no doubt to pounce on the cop who they suspected was brutalizing one of their own.

One local radio host said he must have missed the candle light vigil for the officer in that neighborhood (there was none) as there are numerous such vigils since there are many murders in this area of Rochester (mostly black on black).

The absence of outrage from the city (aka black) residents is deafening…. Of course all the politicians jump on board and give their usual statements of outrage and then go on to their usual fund raising activities to secure their seats for the next elections.As an aside, there are the constant calls for having a police force who represent (colorwise) the population of the neighborhoods they patrol. Unfortunately, as this same radio host (Bob Lonsberry) pointed out, of the city (aka black) school kids who start kindergarten in the City of Rochester, only 9 out of 100 can be expected to graduate high school, given recent statistics and the deplorable condition of the educational system and parental (or lack of) involvement in the city of Rochester.

Out of that pool, these 9 graduates must be able to pass the police exam and have a clean record. Of course, they must also, then, want to be a policeman. So the demand to have these positions filled by minorities is darn near impossible…..Keep up the good work. Sorry there are so many examples coming from Rochester….