From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour can be found in some of Rochester's most violent ZIP codes.

It has been, in many ways, a tough summer, and Rochester remains under a gun violence state of emergency.

And our focus this hour is on who has the credibility to prevent violence and what leadership in the community really means.

So we're going to take this conversation in a number of different directions.

We wanted to hear from the Rochester Police Department.

How do they see the role of community leaders in stopping violence and cultivating relationships?

What is their role?

We want to hear from people who have worked in community leadership on the issue of gun violence and homicide, and on the subject of leadership more generally.

How do you teach it?

The president of the Rochester City School Board is Camille Simmons, but today she's here in her capacity as the executive director of Leadership Rochester.

They work with groups, often adults, who come from the business world, the corporate ladder, nonprofits.

They also do cohorts of kids and teenagers helping kids build stronger connections to our city.

Let's welcome our guests and we get a lot to talk about with Camille Simmons, executive Director of Leadership, Rochester.

Welcome back to the program.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Next to Camille is Wanda Ridgeway, director of care management for Chisel Collective and executive director of CAPZ.

Welcome back to the program to you.

Thank you.

What is Chisel Collective?

Chisel Collective right now?

We're actually working in the community with the 1115 waiver, helping, members in the community who have managed Medicaid plan with rental support, housing, food, clothing, just, you know, helping them get caught up on some things.

And what is CAPZ?

So Katz's community part community alternative partners.

As you said, it's all about collaboration.

So as I, took some time off and, able to sit back and reflect, it's about coming together and how we can bring people together to, be in a community and educate them on some things that they may not know.

I tend to assume most people know your story, but for folks who don't or don't recall, just briefly not to go too deep into it, but just just remind people a little bit of kind of what put you in this in the sphere of influence.

So, in 2009, I lost my nephew Herschel Scrivens to, a homicide here in the city of Rochester.

Herschel was a youth minister, and, his vision, he wanted to work with young people and minister to young people.

And, for a while, I was angry.

I didn't know what to do with that angry.

And, one day I just got up.

I went, started attending the rise of Rochester support groups.

And, I saw this on the support groups.

I said we could be doing so much more.

You know, I don't want to just sit around talking about the pain.

How can we take our pain and turn it into something more positive?

So I just started started doing things, being out in the community, just walking with RPD.

Just seeing what the community was saying.

A lot of people thought that, you know, they didn't like the work walking with the police, but the community, they wanted to see that.

You know, they wanted to see more, opportunities of that, letting people, educating people.

I think one thing we we fail to realize, people do not.

I was saying this people do not because they know not you know, they really don't understand, like the process of, how to report a crime or, you know, who they can trust or who they can go to.

So we need to educate people to let them know, you know, it's our duty.

We're not snitching.

You know, people don't understand the roles of snitching.

You know, I had a guy who came home from prison, and he, you know, he was going into the schools with me, educating kids on it.

And kids did not understand.

They were like, nah, y'all got it all wrong.

Is our duty to tell if you're not involved in that crime, if you're if you're doing that crime, what a person and you telling that person you're snitching.

But as, as a community in our community member, I'm sorry.

It's our duty to tell.

So we we need to start educating our kids, you know, to stop using that word.

I hate to hear the word snitching.

You know?

So do you think you've made progress on convincing people to change their views of what the word snitching means?

I've.

Yeah, I've I've seen some, I've been to some places where people have, you know, know, made some changes that have reported some things.

Yes.

Well, we got a lot more to talk about with Wanda.

Let me welcome Sergeant Justin Collins as well from the Rochester Police Department.

And it's nice to have you back on the program.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So, and part of why I wanted to have Justin and the police department represented here is you just heard one to say that sometimes there are stereotypes about, you know, what?

People don't want to see police or they want less police or, you know, some of the, the debates in the last decade or so about policing, but when you walk the streets with people, they want to see a visible police department.

They tend to.

Yep.

They want to see a positive relationship.

They want to have trust in communities.

How has the summer been and how are you guys doing in terms of building relationships?

I think we're starting to see it turn a little bit as far as relationship building obviously went through a rough patch, policing in general went through a very rough patch in 2020.

We have a lot of high profile incidents where, you know, some police officers did not make the right choice, you know, but really perception versus reality when when one police officer does something in, say, Minneapolis, which we know what happened with George Floyd, now suddenly that's all police officers.

So we're starting to come out of that.

We're starting to see the relationships turn again.

But I want to go back to what you said a moment ago about whether the citizens of the city of Rochester or just in general, what they do or don't want the police around.

It's factually just not true.

Statistically, we are the number 901, and the police specifically are the number one call of anyone in Monroe County.

And if you've concentrated in the city of Rochester, was still the number one call.

So people are calling the police more than ever.

So if they didn't like us or didn't want us around, they most certainly wouldn't be calling us.

So we have that, those numbers on our side.

But I'll say this.

I'll take a deeper.

In my 23 years of working in the city of Rochester and all the people that I've met, you know, it's really like 200 people doing bad stuff and hundreds of thousands of people doing the right stuff.

And they don't want to want this point.

They don't want to live in fear.

They don't want to be bullied.

They don't want to have their families bullied.

They don't want to have to be burnt.

Their car is going to get broken into, and they shouldn't have to stand up to people.

Some of these people are physically unable to stand up to to violence.

They need to call someone to do that.

That's the job that the men and women of the Rochester Police Department took an oath to do.

There were, as we know, some high profile shootings that happened, a few weeks back here and resulted in a couple of cases and people dying.

34 year old Shikhar Green, 14 year old Tanaya Barr lost their lives in mass shootings, on North Clinton Avenue into crowds of people.

Heartbreaking.

No arrests of suspects in those cases.

Time.

Is that correct?

No, nothing.

Nothing new to report on that?

No.

Okay.

And when you're doing an investigation like that, how important is it to have leaders in the community who can work with you?

Who are, you know, not in RPD, but, you know, can understand a little bit more about what's happening in different communities and different neighborhoods.

It's everything.

Because if we don't do you work for the community?

And that's one of the things I teach all my officers and all my future officers in our programs.

The community are our customers, and they are our partners, and we work for them.

And if we don't have them as allies, we can't solve crimes.

We just can't.

And every step of the way, if because we're if we're not present for a crime to happen, live.

And in this day and age, with us being down staffing, that's even more of a reality.

The committee is our people that are going to give us an information.

They're the ones going to say, I am not tolerating this in my neighborhood.

And if we don't have them or if they don't feel valued or trusted or heard, then it will not.

It won't happen.

So how important is it?

Is it one a it's number one undisputed.

We have to have community support.

How we look forward is people like Wanda.

People like a meal.

It doesn't mean because you have a relationship with the police that you are snitching.

It means that you're not going to tolerate nonsense in your community.

You're just not gonna.

And that's something on the other end with policing.

That has really been my focus the last few years is with all the people coming through our programs that are trying to become Rochester police officers.

And the people that work directly for me is that our community are our customers.

They are our partners.

This the residents of the city of Rochester.

And they're going to tell you what type of policing they want, and they're going to tell you what type of service you want.

It's not what you think they want.

They're going to tell you.

And I think we have to provide, and we're starting to provide more opportunities for real dialog.

And I think a lot of times, to your point to a want is point is that there is a little bit of a misunderstanding on both sides of how this process works and what our actual role is.

I want to say, before I get going to and this is today is the anniversary of Darryl Pearson's death.

And I want to mention that because this is what I always go back to, is there's going to be cops that are the best cops ever, and there's going to be cops in other places that aren't doing the right thing.

But by and large, most of the cops that are on in this city, do it with their heart, and they do the very best they can.

They put their lives on the line every single day.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention there's the anniversary of that.

And I feel horrible for his family and everyone who in the community.

And again, I go back to the community, the community's outpouring of support when that happened, that they know that person was out there for you, so you didn't have to go out there and fight people that are robbing people or selling drugs in front of your house so that all ties in.

We have support from the community.

But we have to give more inroads and avenues to have dialog so that we can explain things and so that the officers understand what the community wants to be.

Street.

So the the concept of leadership in general.

Camille Simmons, as the executive director of Leadership, Rochester, can you teach leadership or does it have to be sort of innate?

I think we all know people in our lives who we feel like, no, that's a natural leader.

You know, I know ten year old I going, yeah, that's in the back.

That's getting the leader.

But can you teach it to someone who maybe doesn't have an innate sense of it?

So it's an interesting question.

And I do believe leaders are born, but I also believe that their skills need to be sharpened.

If they're born or if there's an opportunity to hone their skills and better understand what leadership looks like.

And then there's some people that just absolutely should probably not be leaders.

Everyone can't be a leader.

If everyone's a leader, then probably if they do, then one of the strongest precepts of leadership is also the ability to follow.

A strong leader knows when to follow because, no matter what your rank is, you're your title role.

If you are a true leader, then you understand that you don't know everything.

The moment you think you know everything, you've got a lot more to learn.

And so with that understanding, I can walk into a room regardless of my title and recognize this person knows some things or has information that I don't have.

And how do I leverage that relationship to inform my understanding.

And that's how you sharpen your leadership lens.

And this is the beauty of leadership.

Rochester, the conversation you're hearing right now between Justin and Wanda, the organizations they represent, these are the conversations we're able to have across sectors.

So we have a social justice day.

And that's what this conversation would represent on some level.

Then you can have a different conversation of the same liking regarding economic development here in Rochester, we have a de focus on education.

Government.

So this is the richness of leadership, Rochester bringing folks together that, represent different segments of our community and pushing that collaboration and that understanding forward, having the difficult conversation so it doesn't become a is it us or them?

But how do we how do we effectuate change in this community collaboratively when it comes to that humility that leaders need to have to understand, they don't know everything and they can learn from others?

When you are training people with Leadership Rochester, sometimes you're working with people in the corporate world.

The business world.

Absolutely.

You do, you do you see humility there?

Do you see leaders who come in saying, look, I don't know everything I'm here to learn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We do have a lot of folks that come in.

So we have a process that we talk to you before you come in and, you have a general understanding of what you're going to experience over this ten month program.

It kicks off in September.

We have a new cohort kicking off, September 17th and 18th.

We're still taking a few applications all the way to September 9th.

And this experience is literally the city of Rochester in Monroe County.

Become your classroom.

So you're not just stuck in our space throughout this ten month time frame.

And we end in June with a graduation and a lot of growth.

To answer your question, yes, folks come in recognizing that they don't know everything.

And that's part of why they're there.

They want to learn.

They want to understand.

And you're spending this, intimate time with people that you normally wouldn't.

So if I'm in the health care sector, sitting with someone from the social justice, sector, or like Wanda from the nonprofit sector that I may not see every day.

I've got one Friday a month that I get to come and connect with these individuals.

And then when I graduate, I belong to a network, an alumni base of thousands of people here in Rochester that have also gone through this program.

Do you still take an application?

I'm still taking applications.

We are still until next week.

Yeah, till September 9th.

All the way to the to the wheels fall off if you will.

And we're going to kick off September 17th and 18th with our opening retreat and start the experience all over again.

This past spring you had a team program, and part of what the kids do is they get out on foot and they see different parts of the community of Rochester.

Yes, in-person, experiential learning, but also, according to some of your literature, you want kids to feel more connected to their city?

Yes.

Why do you do it that way?

It's imperative.

I believe hands on learning is the best teacher.

Right?

To see it, to breathe it, to know it, to be able to feel the fabric of Rochester is important.

So we have students and children from all over, from Monroe County that come together in downtown Rochester.

We are hosted at the RIT Q center, right in a space there.

And each, over that seven week period, they are able to go out and meet community leaders.

They might go and meet, sit with the mayor.

They may go down to the MC forward center, the technology center, and learn about technology.

So they too, similar to our signature class with adults, are able to feel the fabric, understand and then take that, learning and create a little project and present that information, present what they've learned.

And so that's something that sticks with you when you actually feel fabric.

So I want to ask all three of you about something that I think stands out from the early part of this conversation, particularly as it pertains to violence in the community and what leadership means when you have to say hard things.

I understand everybody listening may have a slightly different view on policing or what you want out of policing, etc., but I have read a lot of studies.

I've talked to people from RIT and from different organizations that that really do try to get on the ground and talk to neighbors in zip codes where violence is way too high in the city of Rochester, but also in Buffalo and cities across the country.

And the desire to see policing be present, positive, helpful is pretty much everywhere.

There's almost there's nowhere that I've ever seen where there's anything close to a majority of people who want no police or even a lot less police, especially in neighborhoods with a lot of violent.

And so but there's also a very strong sort of sense of politics and sometimes activism, which I understand comes from I mean, we got an activist in the room in many ways one day.

And yeah, I understand when passion runs high, but how do you say hard things to people, you know, such as, hey, I know why you are critical of certain events in policing, but.

If you are in the crowd that says we want no police or less police, that is not what our community is telling us and we're not going to do that.

Yeah.

What does it take to be able to kind of say hard things when the easy thing is kind of just nod and go along with.

Right.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

No.

That again goes back to your first point around the humility of leadership and understanding that although you may hold a perspective or know a group of people that hold a perspective, if you're truly listening to the people that you're looking to impact and support, then you have to hear their voice.

And you can't sit in a silo and say, I've heard your voice at one point in time.

And so true leadership means, to your point, even having that difficult conversation, hearing something you may not have expected to hear or something that you do not agree with, but yet the greater community or, organization has spoken and shared that that's not our view.

The view that you believe we hold is is not our view.

So hearing the stories and recognizing where people come from.

So when we look at the history of slave patrols and the United States, like, let's go there, let's talk about that.

When we look at the history of policing in the United States and then look at families as a black mother.

My son is 29 years old.

I have had encounters or he has had encounters.

But then there's also gentleman like Justin, Sergeant Collins that I've encountered that have a different, they bring something different to what I may have experience with law enforcement.

The folks that have wrap their arms around my son in a positive way.

So there are there are balances to this conversation that we have to be willing to hear, lean into, and then again come in with a mindset of, are we here to help the community or are we here to promote ourselves?

And so helping the community, to me, looks like recognizing the history, understanding it, and you've already said it.

It's not that people don't want police anywhere, but they don't.

They want to have positive relationship.

So how do we build up and understand that relationships are built on trust?

And so when that a trust has been eroded, that is what the fragmented experiences that we're having.

How would you see some of that one?

I mean, again, in your own experience, a personal loss going back?

I mean, can you believe it's 17 years and the anger that you felt from the beginning?

Who was?

Let me ask you a couple things.

But who is the anger most directed at when you were first really grieving?

Who are you most angry at?

That, to be honest, I was angry with God.

You know, I was angry with God.

Yeah.

Then, you know, the community, you know, I was real angry with the community because, you know, not understanding.

No one was.

I didn't say anything until I sat in a trial to understand what what was happening.

You know, to piggyback on what Camille was saying, we have to have these uncomfortable conversations, and we do have to sit down no matter what.

How we may feel about a situation and learn, you know, to learn from each other.

I, just grateful that I was an opportunity.

I look at I don't look at my nephew's death right now as a loss again, it was like a, you know, I'm not going to say a purpose, but I learned so much from his death because before, Wanda would have been doing something totally different, probably in a nursing field, not even thinking about the community.

Never thought this is something that I would be doing.

But from his death, I just learned and seeing so many others sitting in a support group meeting, engaging out, walking in communities, you learn so much from, you know, people, people opinions and you try to bring it back.

I'm like, okay, so how can we strategize and help the community instead of sitting here being silent and not saying anything?

You know, this person may fill this plate and this person is so this way.

How can we bring them here together to sit down and talk and, you know, try to work some things out?

Have you reconciled your anger spiritually?

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And God is, you know, that's you know, that's the reason why they're doing this work is it was his plan.

It was never my plan.

It was all his.

So, I'm grateful to have a great spiritual leader.

Reverend AMC Simmons over at Baber, who, actually was my, spiritual counselor.

And just, you know, walk with beside me through this whole ordeal, you know, even, you know, even as the mother of I have twins.

Twins?

I'm not gonna tell my age, but but, I had a son.

He was, you know, he was out here.

He was just doing some crazy things, and I was, you know, I would be at church and crying, and he said, why are we crying?

And, you know, what's going on?

And, and I had that a conversation, you know, I wasn't ashamed to talk about it.

And he grabbed my hand and he said, come on, we're going to go walking.

You know, that's when we had the what's with, I can't.

Which captain was it?

I think it was LeBron Singletary at the time.

And we did.

This community walks out in the community where he, you know, my son was and he was like, you are crazy.

Why are you bringing these people around here?

I'm like, nope.

I just want a safe community for my child, my children, my grandchildren to be, you know, feel safe that, it happened to the point where he stopped, you know, he eventually stopped after having a gun, pulled out a gun twice, and it jammed.

So, you know, like I tell people, you know, you just never know.

You never know what it takes.

And, you know, like, I said, we have to, I'm not afraid.

I'm going to community every day.

I've sat on a trial.

Not only did I lose my nephew, I witnessed, my boyfriend being murdered in 2001.

So I experience all these losses, having to testify and, you know.

Oh, I'm gonna get you.

I'm gonna do this and that, and I'm not.

But I'm still here, you know?

I'm still here.

They deserve it.

You know?

Their families deserve that closure, you know?

So I think we just have to, you know, you know, we all going to have our differences.

We are going to have.

I've had some good experience with our PD.

I had some bad experience with our PD, but, the some of the experience I've learned, look, we did help develop with CPS.

I the homicide response team from the city of Rochester.

So those experience that I'm learning, the support groups that they're hosting now for victims, families of, homicide victims in just mentoring programs, just trying to get people to realize, like, we have to see what the need of the community is.

And, Sergeant Collins was talking earlier, and I was like this this year, the word is collaboration and education.

We have to.

And that's one thing I learned from the blast.

And I'm going to go back the best class class of 2024 okay, okay.

All right.

I'll be there.

So, Rochester, I learned that, some of the alumni.

So, you know, it's interesting.

I get calls from a lot of people and some of them are my alumni.

Some of them are, members who were in my class that were on the force.

And, you know, they call me, hey, I got a family I need that need some help.

Can you help me?

So those are the relationships that we need.

I know that I can call on Camille.

Look, I got a mother or, you know, whoever.

Any other commissioners I can call and say this is happening in the school.

What support can we give them?

That's what we need to do.

We have to get back to being that community.

At some point, we lost it, and we have to get back to being what we used to be.

Right.

I'm going to turn to Sergeant Collins in just a second.

Let me just ask one other point on that last one there from 1 to 1 of your colleagues at Chisel was on this program.

Yes.

And part of what he was telling us was, I think everything that you just described in what being a community leader is, he was agreeing with.

He was also saying, we need more.

We need in every zip code, in every neighborhood, on every street.

We need the the people you can talk to when things are tough.

We need the people who can work with police.

If something is going down.

We just need more.

There are so many wonderful people, but it shouldn't take tragedy to forge a leader.

You were forged in real tragedy.

You've lost so much and you've given so much now, and I, I was just thinking, reflecting on your colleagues comment, saying like, it shouldn't take what one to went through to forge leaders.

And I know that saying it does.

I'm sure there's great leaders who haven't lost as much as you have.

Do you think we can see the kind of leadership in on the ground in our community?

You know, without loss?

Absolutely, absolutely.

We're seeing it now, you know, Jamie Anderson, I don't know.

He's doing right now.

He's doing a community, basketball tournaments over at number six school.

You know, started out as, outreach worker, for one of the local organizations and was running these programs and just trying to find a way to bring the community together in a positive way.

Why not a friendly game of basketball?

You know, I look at his leadership, you know, and I'm like, you know, it takes a great person to really sit down with these individuals and just say, hey, I went and sat at some of these games and is some of the people I would have never thought that would have been on the same court, but he found some type of way to bring them together, a friendly way, you know?

Yeah, maybe some things we don't, you know, we see, we don't like, but, you know, we can clean up.

But he's doing it.

He's doing it.

He's that credible messenger that's in the community that has those relationships that can talk or, you know, like he told me one day he said, man, I'm doing a a mediation right now.

I got to call you back.

And I just smiled.

These are the people that we need.

We need members like him.

Amen.

Yeah.

So.

So what's the police role in working with people like Wanda, people like Jamie and other people in the community?

And how do you see the RPD role here?

For sure.

Well, first of all, a lot to unpack.

I had so many things that I felt what they were saying for sure.

I want to say, you know, we trusted we're talking about spirituality.

I think that God gives us gifts.

And I think he gave me two gifts that I would love to say that I wish I was 65 and that I was a billionaire, right, and gave me those gifts.

He gave me the ability to create culture.

In the workplace and in my personal life.

And I don't take that, that, that gift for granted.

And he, you know, he gave me a gift to be a community builder.

And I think that's something that is really crucial, the ability to influence people.

And what I've done with that is it's still to Camille's point about what is it, individualism.

Where we trying to fix things?

I will be gone someday.

Sergeant Collins won't work for the Rochester Police Department someday.

And all the great things that we're doing can't be lost.

There's been many other officers that have been community focused, digamos this and others that are gone.

Now.

The one thing that I've tried to do with the position that I'm in is help not only influence my current officers that work for me, but all the future officers behind us so that we can have more people that are community minded.

It can't just tie with one person or one wander one Camille.

And that's what we're doing through our faith program, bringing police officers, a future police officers and current ones into houses of worship, in the synagogues, in the temples, consistently going to services, asking for nothing, going to services, being one with the culture and different people in their religions.

I one of my biggest pet peeves is I can't live the same year twice.

Three times.

Everybody in this community by and large wants to be safe and Camille mentioned slave patrols.

Those are real things.

These things happened.

We've now got to say, okay, 2026.

We cannot forget what happened.

So history never repeats itself.

And sometimes look around the world and I wonder if history is repeating itself.

Right.

But we have to make sure there's lots of people that are stepping up and they're leading.

But it's time to start getting dialog.

So when some a police officer does something a certain way, that's that's justified.

That dialog has to happen.

But also when a community member is asking for something in a certain way, we have to understand where they're coming from.

They live here.

This is where they live.

This is the type of service that they want.

I read a book by a gentleman named, Cedric Alexander.

He's a former police chief here, called The New Guardians.

And it really encapsulates where policing is going.

Oh, we talked about recruitment.

Right.

One of the beautiful things is everything I try to wrap in anything I do in policing is involved in community because the community are our customers.

And when the new guardians, it really talks about what the future of policing is.

And I went back for my master's degree in law enforcement, public safety leadership.

And everything they talked about was what we're talking about.

And there are some police departments that are really getting it right, and RPD is moving in that direction.

And that's awesome because we don't want to live the same year twice.

We don't.

We want community members to step up and say no to this and do it in groups.

So right now you have people that still feel like they have control of these neighborhoods, but they're outnumbered by all the great citizens.

So the more they feel strong and band together and speak their mind, then things will change and violence will be almost none.

So just on the subject of Cedric Alexander's book, and that's someone we haven't talked to in a while, but Cedric Alexander, former chief of police in Rochester, the new Guardians, is it oversimplified or is it fair to ask a department, do you have a guardian or a warrior mindset?

I think you have to be both.

I think there are times we're asking police officers.

I mean, we're asking I'll say Rochester police officers.

They are putting themselves in grave danger, or nightly.

And they're doing that for it.

The the pay is not worth your life.

You know, nothing is right.

You're you get one life.

So the officers have to be warriors at times.

But their resting mode is guardians.

Our job is to protect people.

They have to protect the citizens of Rochester.

We're not there to get the citizens of Rochester.

We're there to protect them when they call, we show up.

We protect.

This is where, you know, really, the principles of new guardians is that it's really just about, you know, being engaged in the community, showing up for them.

Not the only time they see you is when you're arresting someone, because you would never have a good relationship with someone if the only time you saw them is when something bad was happening.

And if a community becomes convinced that you actually are just warriors, that you are not guardians, right, then you're in real trouble, in big trouble, or in big trouble.

And then would you would would you be willing to sit down, have a cup of coffee, or to tell a warrior what's happening in your neighborhood?

Probably not.

Right.

So this is where that guardian mentality, our role even from the be from not the very beginning, but shortly after police policing got with Sir Robert Peel in and after we really became professionalized or started to really want to be protectors.

And that is where we're at in 2026 and beyond that protection role, that showing up, that being someone you can trust has to happen.

But that comes from showing up and being consistent.

How I'm talking right here is what I do when I talk to my officers is what I do to when I go with the friends I hang.

I don't have a different personality on a different day.

And you talk about being comfortable, stepping up and talking to community members who maybe don't agree that they want to, or Camille, same thing exist in policing.

There are some people who do not subscribe to being guardians and do not subscribe to being, The community is our customers.

A lot of them do, but some don't.

And when you're out there grinding, call, call every day.

I'd be lying if I didn't say that.

You know, you really.

You remember you're only dealing with bad.

You're not dealing with good.

People aren't calling you when things are going great.

You're only dealing with, you know, at times, the very worst.

You've got to you got to reset yourself.

And that's why it's so important.

Leaders, the sergeants here, the road sergeants here, are the most important people in our entire police department, because they set the tone for what officers are doing every day.

And that's why my role is bringing in folks here and with my officers is that's the that's the culture that we create because after we're gone, we need 30, 40, 50, 60 people thinking like that.

And that's how we'll bring walls down in our police department and build bridges in the community even stronger.

So here's what we're going to do.

I've got to get our only break in that I wish we had two hours with this panel here, because there's so much I'm writing down that I want to talk about as we talk about leadership in this community, particularly from the perspective of violence prevention in relationships with police relationships across communities.

You just heard, Sergeant Justin Collins from the Rochester Police Department.

We're going to talk in a moment.

We come back about police recruiting and how they are doing in that regard.

And we're also talking to one to Ridgeway, director of care management for Chisel Collective and executive director of CAPZ, and Camille Simmons.

You probably know Camille first is president of the Rochester School Board, but also executive director of leadership Rochester.

And she told you earlier this hour they also have some openings for recruiting a new class of leaders that, you can apply to through next week.

I think so, yes.

So a lot going on here.

Let's take the short break.

We'll come right back at Connections.

Coming up in our second hour, one of the most inventive minds in American fiction joins us.

It's a special rebroadcast of our conversation with the author, Jeff VanderMeer.

He's written books that have become movies, starting starring people like Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac.

But maybe more importantly, a lot of critics think his books give us a good window window into how we think about our own actual future.

As foreboding as it might seem sometimes, that's next.

Our support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

Bob Johnson Auto group.com.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson, Camille Simmons as executive director of leadership Rochester.

There's something that Sergeant Collins said that really stands out to me when I think about leadership, and that is the consistency in front of every audience.

If you are standing in front of an audience and you think, well, I'm going to tell them what they want to hear.

But, you know, when I go back with with my group or my organization, you know, then I'm going to let it out for real.

Look, not there's nobody alive who probably doesn't speak a little bit different with, you know, a spouse.

They're family.

I'm just talking about how truly comfortable.

Yeah, right.

I mean, that's just reality.

But there is, I think, a difference between that and genuine consistency.

Authenticity versus I'm a pander because I think you're a monger.

I think you're going to get found out.

And I don't think that's that's what leadership is.

If you're just pandering, if you watch you, you'll see who gets found out.

But I'll leave that there.

No, you're right.

And it's interesting you said that because as I listened to Sergeant Collins today, I started to think about the ten month journey that I experienced, as executive director as you were going through the 2025 class, which I thought you said it was the best class ever.

But then why, why, why do I want to wait for my turn to throw back?

I don't know, so.

But, that's something I can say.

I was able to observe with Sergeant Collins.

That was my first encounter with him.

And throughout that ten month period, every time we came together, who I'm listening to today on the radio, whenever I see him, when I see his works in the community, there is, to your point, even consistency.

Same guy.

He's not only talking the talk, but he's walking the walk.

You see it with the work he does is he, works with recruiting members and having classes.

I think it's each year of of recruit new recruits to the RPD.

He really is promoting a culture of change understanding in that, that understanding between warrior and what was the other term Guardian.

Guardian.

Right.

And recognizing that sometimes it's interchangeable, that you sometimes have to be in that warrior you can't protect without being one.

But also, how do you love on the community that needs you to be a guardian in that in that moment?

And so culture change, information and education is what will start to change that.

Culture, systems and cultures are two of the hardest things to change, and I wanted to make that point earlier, how people understand what it means to show up as a community member, what it means to change criminality in the community here in Rochester.

What do we need to do differently collectively as individual citizens, as collaborative groups, as our guardians?

What do we need to do differently and better to make this community Rochester, a better place?

Couple more questions for the panel and then I'll turn it over.

Some feedback from the audience one to Ridgeway, briefly, what do you think is most missing in our community that nobody wanted to have a summer with?

Any mass shootings, with unsolved crimes, with the kind of pain that you have gone through, what is most missing that is preventing us from getting where we want to go?

We need the community.

One thing that I will say we, we have to get back to being a community.

We got to stop being so judgmental, and stop saying what RPD should do.

What?

What the school should do, what the parents would do.

We have to get back and start treating, one thing.

I'm going to say what Capps is going to do differently is, work with that family holistically.

We can't just work with that at risk youth.

We have to find out what's going on with the mom, the siblings.

You know, because one thing I did learn as well as sitting at a table and, you know, when a mother, she was grieving and she brought her child and the child was like, nobody has ever asked me how I was feeling or how I was dealing with all of this.

So we just got to look at how we approach things differently.

So that's how I think those are some of the gaps.

Like I said, I don't want to, create anything that people, what people are already doing.

I just want to work with the family as a whole, educate them.

Financial literacy on, just educating on things, you know, palate, anything that they need to know.

We have to just, you know, be out, be ready and willing to teach them these things.

And you be surprised people want it and they just don't know where to start or to ashamed to ask the question.

Yeah.

And, Sergeant Collins, I know you've been recruiting.

You've talked about on this program before.

We've talked about it.

With Lieutenant Bello.

We've talked about it with a lot of people.

But every six months or so, how many officers do you lose to retirement?

I would say around 20 to 30.

Okay.

And how many in the department right now.

Around seven are a little over a little under about 115 officers.

So we're down about a little over 100 officers.

You're down over 100 officers in a department that currently employs.

How many officers should have around 720.

Okay.

So you're losing 15 to 20 every six months to retirement.

Yep.

Typically to retirement.

Yeah.

And you're hiring.

How many new officers a year?

15.

20 to 25.

Okay.

So you're you're kind of keeping up.

You're not even keeping up with basic retirement schedule.

No.

As opposed to keeping up with the retirements and right, cutting into the shortfall that the mayor has talked about that you talked about so.

Well.

So what are you doing right now?

What do you want people to know?

Right.

So we my officers are out there all the time recruiting.

I think it starts just with getting cutting through the noise.

You talk about leaders rising and, stepping up.

We need people that are in the community that want to take a different role, and they want to be part of protecting.

We want people to rise up and get involved.

And to become Rochester police officers.

They can go to join the rpd.com to do that, to learn that my officers will take them right through the process.

There's like 15 folks out there right now working to get people here and help usher them in, shepherd them through the process.

But what I want people to know and to really understand is personally, for me, like my first story of what this career has done for me, in addition to meeting all these outstanding people and to helping people, which you cannot put a price tag on, I mean, this our PD officers are out there helping people every day, so that feeling is incredible.

But for me, I mean this.

I grew up in the city of Buffalo in a single parent home, very abusive relationship.

My mother was a victim of domestic violence.

You know, again, single parent home, my son, my sister and I very poor.

This job took me out of poverty.

I mean, it just did.

It changed my life for that.

And that when you're talking about a career, it's very important.

I have back in Buffalo, where I grew up, I have family members that are on drugs.

I have family members that have been, that are dead, that are killed, overdosed.

You know, I have a very large family, families that are arrested.

So as a police officer in another city, you know, here I can understand what people are going through.

But just to go back, what this job, if that's someone like you, what this job could do for you?

Again, it took me out of poverty.

Give me a great life.

Never had to go without my family.

And I got to thank God.

But also, if you look at it like the places I've worked, the positions I've had, the units I've managed.

But then, look, they pay for my bachelor's degree, they paid for my master's degree, they paid for me to go to leadership Rochester.

Leadership Rochester is one of the most wonderful experiences that I've ever had in my life.

And I've been in this job for 23 years.

I've been supervising for 17 the the experience I had, the people that I met were it was incredible.

And there are a lot of people that I would not have known.

And once the walls came down and we really started to realize that we all wanted the same things, but there was different paths to get there.

And then we realized that if we don't collaborate, we're going to move to steps and we're not going to move further.

So that's really what Leadership Rochester was for me, and I recommend it to everyone.

There are people that I've met in my court that I still hang out with today and do things with, but it brought everybody out of their shell.

And I thought, I do a lot about this city, and I did not.

I learned so much and from so many other people in different industries.

And when I talk about the alumni and the feeling, I mean, I can literally I've called and had lunch and asked for favors and they asked the same of me.

That's life.

And it was such a catalyst for that in my career.

I strongly encourage anyone to get involved because Leadership Rochester was incredible.

And you want people to come to the RPD.

So to join the join the arc, join the rbd.com, become a leader in this community to protect.

And then they should quickly thereafter get in leadership Rochester.

All right.

The last thing I want to Kamil he's hired I think.

Yes.

Really.

Last thing I want to ask all of you before I grab a phone call.

do you think Sergeant Collins someone knows something about the mass shootings this summer, and they're not talking to you yet?

I think there's someone who always knows something.

I think the streets talk.

In my 23 years on this job, people always know people will either buy guilt, brag or they have brag or to feel guilty, and they'll tell.

But people know and eventually, you know, the right person finds out and they do tell.

And that's important.

Sometimes people come forward and they admit things, which is also good.

But either way, we can't have people living in fear that they could be a victim of a mass shooting.

It's it's not correct.

It's not snitching.

And it's just you should not have to live your mother or father or your daughter, nephew, cousin, brother shouldn't have to be randomly shot.

Living in our community, it's not safe.

It should never be tolerated.

One to Ridgeway to someone, somewhere.

No.

Who's behind the mass shootings?

The summer?

Of course they know, as just, you know, Sergeant, the sergeant, Collins and mentioned, people do know, but people are afraid to say things and, but, I want to encourage them.

You know, you may have seen, color.

They may have a hat on.

They may they may have had a hat on or something.

Just going back and reliving my nephew's trial.

Just someone peeking out the window to could tell what a license plate was, was able to catch the the young man who was involved in my nephew's shooting.

So there's nothing too little that can help support, what's happening?

But like he said, the streets do talk.

The streets to talk.

Well, that anger that you talked about feeling after you lost your nephew in 2009, do you harbor anger for people who do know things but don't tell?

No, you don't.

You know, I don't, just try to encourage them and show them a different way.

You have to you have to.

That's something that.

Well, I had to learn, you know, to sit down and, you know, like, you know, what is it going to solve?

You know, you hold all that anger in to explode.

Once I really sat down and realized what the anger that I was holding, it was it was hurting me.

So, you know, just encouraging people, you know, you got to get out here, you got to do stuff, and, you know, and you do things hurt people hurt people, you know?

So you don't want to be saying the wrong things.

You know, you want to sit back from these till I've learned so, so much.

And when I say a whole different perspective, Moses Roberson Captain Lucian, I have learned so much from these officers in the field.

You know, and like I said, you call.

Hey, I need you.

Can you come volunteer at a Christmas party?

We need some hemlock recruits.

They were there, and that's important.

And getting to know the neighborhoods that you're working in, getting to know.

So our young people don't feel afraid.

Like they don't always look at the officers arresting someone.

Oh, I remember you.

You help me bring my bike to the car that I want at it.

You know, I don't know.

I had a peace officer.

You were at the Christmas party, you know, so we gotta we got to change people views on how they they look at the RPD well, or how they look at talking to the other.

Absolutely.

You're showing a lot of grace.

But you also think someone out there knows who was behind unsolved shootings in our city this year, and they haven't said anything yet.

But I encouraged them, and I believe someone will.

You know, I truly believe that these families.

I'm praying that they, you know, will get closure because, you know, it was hard.

You know, it's definitely hard.

So let me grab a phone call from Robert in Fairport who's been waiting.

Hey, Robert.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

These questions for the sergeant that's on the panel here.

They're trying to recruit new officers.

And I know that one of the biggest changing changes in policing over the last few years is the cashless bail.

And, you know, when that was implemented, there were some numbers there because what they've done is they replaced bail with a desk appearance ticket.

I have not seen any statistics anywhere that shows the percentage of recipients of desk appearance tickets actually showing up into court.

So has that gone up?

Has it gone down?

What's the number?

I mean, a lot of this is about personal responsibility, which, by the way, is not something that's mentioned at all in this conversation.

But I'll I'll hang up a little bit.

Response.

Thank you.

Well, so first of all, Robert, I don't think because you haven't heard the phrase personal response to responsibility, I would totally dispute the idea that we haven't been talking about personal responsibility.

One to Ridgeway just talked a lot about helping people change their minds on what their responsibility is, but also showing grace to say, if you're not ready right now, I'm not going to judge you, but I'm going to work on you.

I mean, because that ultimately I think all three of our guests have been talking about personal responsibility.

I don't disagree with you, Robert, that that's important, but I think that's part of what this is about is helping change minds about if I know something, what am I responsible for?

What can I do with them?

Okay, to to his question on cashless bail, I think go ahead.

Yeah.

I mean we we I didn't hear the first part of it turn up.

What was the first part of the question?

Yes.

He's he's asking, about statistics and change.

He says he hasn't seen statistics, over the years as to the outcome of cashless bail in general.

Anything you want to say about.

Yeah, I say I don't have any statistics to provide for him either.

But one thing that we have to realize is that we realize as policing and all my officers understand this as well, as we do not control the policies that the state and how we operate, whether we have bail, bail reform, any of that, all we do is enforce the laws that we have, that the state provides us and follow the policies of our department.

And what we're sworn an oath to do is to protect the community.

So we don't get into involved in legislation and this and that.

What we do is try to be the calm in the storm and the person who steps in front of the danger.

So but the communities and subjected to violence, that's our job.

Okay.

And Robert, we're going to come back.

We'll revisit that whole question on a separate conversation.

Sure.

Because, Sergeant Hollis doesn't have data in front of him.

But I think your questions are fair, Robert, and we ought to talk about that on a separate day here.

Okay.

20s, why do you want to leave with the community from this hour?

So I want if you're someone who wants to step up, protect, wants to lead in this community, and you think you want to start an incredible career with the police department that, is rebuilding, I would say you should join the RPD.

I would say it's been an incredible career.

I've met some amazing people.

We have some absolutely amazing, brave men and women who work here right now, that you're going to become the best of friends with.

And if this is you, it's time to go to join the rpd.com and join this team.

One to Ridgeway.

About 20s final thoughts from you.

So final thoughts.

A lot of people always asking, how can I help find an organization, find what you're passion is, find an organization that values, the mission that you would like to, you know, work on and join.

You know, join.

I'm going to encourage and challenge, any organization interested in the city to send someone to leadership Rochester.

Like I said, I've learned so much.

If you want to know where to go, you can always reach out.

You all know how to find me.

All right, Camille Simmons, final thoughts from you?

I'm going to say leadership.

Rochester's mission is to inspire, connect, and educate dynamic leaders throughout Rochester to effectuate change in Rochester.

And when you join this particular cohort or any future cohort, you will have these conversations and more.

But then these conversations emphatically lead to action.

Where can people find more?

Come visit our website, Leadership rochester.org and look at our signature program next time we talk.

I suppose you'll have your school board hat on and that's appropriate enough, but it's nice to talk to you in this capacity.

Thank you.

Camille Simmons, who's the president?

The school board executive director of leadership, Rochester.

Wanda Ridgeway, director of care management for a collective and executive director of CAPZ one.

It is always inspiring to catch up with you.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Sergeant Justin Collins from the Rochester Police Department.

Thank you for being here, sir.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

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