Tea and Vitriol

The Police Accountability Board (PAB) needs no introduction to anyone who has lived in Rochester, New York for the last six years or is an aficionado of Black Comedy.  Or to anyone who has read this blog for the last few years. That being the case, only a cursory history of the PAB will be provided here. The PAB was originally conceived to be a body of citizens appointed to investigate alleged incident of police abuse regarding their interaction with criminals. To be appointed to this "august" group, one needed to be a resident of the City of Rochester. Some weren't. A prospective candidate could not be related to, or be a friend of, a Rochester City Police Officer. But they could, and many are, family and friends of criminals. Clearly, the PAB was never meant to be unbiased in their investigations. The creation of the PAB was approved by a majority of voters during an election with a low turnout and City Government promptly budgeted it with $5 million a year! Then delusi

 Rochester, New York has become a deadly violent place to live, work and play. I have been spending more and more time in Germany over the last five years and after each trip the thought of returning to Rochester usually unnerves me. My European friends wonder why I remain living in such a dangerous place, especially when, thanks to the internet, they can read for themselves what is going on here. There I can walk the streets at any hour, feeling safe and relatively secure. Here, in the neighborhood where I still maintain a residence, I won't walk my dogs after dark. There are some streets that I find it necessary to avoid because of the propensity for violence to occur there. Even when merely driving through them. And we no longer have beat cops walking the streets anymore. They were a usual feature in my youth, and I honestly believe that their presence in the neighborhoods helped prevent crime or at least provided a sense of security. Alas, beat cops vanished like the passenger

Rochester, New York is a dying city just off of the coast of Planet Earth. Its politics resemble Bizarro World's. But then, the governor of New York State is a toxic She-Devil, the attorney general is a frustrated, aging hag whose personal hatreds influence her judicial activities, who have had infected the state with their baneful philosophies. To be honest, the hilarious antics of the elected officials in the body politic of Rochester have ceased to shock or amaze me. If anything stupid or outrageous can happen here, it will. The latest "bombshell" really shouldn't surprise anyone. Ex-mayor Lovely A. Warren, who was forced to resign her office in December 2021 as part of a plea deal regarding mishandling her election finances (in her 2017 re-election bid) is running for City court Judge! Imagine! That she is able to do so is thanks to the sweetheart deal offered to her by District Attorney Sandra Doorley, which she promptly accepted. By pleading guilty to a misdemea

  Ahh, the good old days of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union! Claiming to be "democratic," the Soviets featured regular "free" elections. Voters were handed ballots that sported the names of various candidates for various offices. All were card-carrying Communists approved of by the party. No other parties were represented. Voters were allowed to "choose" between the same sort of candidates, which fulfilled the theory if not the spirit of Democracy. Sort of like the Democratic Party's stranglehold on politics in the City of Rochester. Most of my European friends and acquaintances are fascinated by this concept of one-party rule in a so-called democracy, since they have a variety of parties representing different points of view that actively participate in the political process, which makes for some very lively election campaigns. It becomes even more amusing to explain what goes on in Rochester's Democratic Primary, which takes place tomorro

And a distance of over 3,000 miles doesn't improve the way it looks, either! I have been spending a lot more time in Europe these days, specifically in Germany. I know that there are certain people in Rochester who are delighted to have me gone, while they don't seem to understand that I find it more refreshing and peaceful to be away from our dying hometown. But then, those people don't seem to understand my extremely low opinion of them. I am long past the point where their opinion means anything to me. Thanks to the internet and instantaneous news reporting, it is easy to keep abreast of what goes on in the world, even about Rochester, New York. Apparently, our city "leaders" are either unaware of that fact or simply don't care how Rochester is perceived across the world. It isn't flattering. When people ask where I am from, I tell them. It is not my job to lie for our city government. That's what City Hall's Communications Department gets paid

It has been nearly two years since Steve Amenhauser was doused with flammable liquid by two teenage feral urban humanoids. With second and third degree burns over 70% of his body, from which he succumbed four days later. It has taken two years to bring his murderers to trial. And it has taken two years for the local news media to comment on it, albeit it ever so briefly. In an insultingly brief statement, News 10 NBC announced that Monroe County Family Court Judge Stacy Romeo could announce her verdict regarding Adriel Riley today. This was a bench trial, as the defendant's request, and not a jury trial Adriel Riley, who was 14 at the time he and his buddy, Zayvion Perry, set Steve Amenhauser ablaze, was charged with murder, arson and criminal possession of a weapon.  If Judge Romeo finds him guilty, he could spend up to 25 years behind bars. Or maybe not, since the latest fad in "justice" doesn't permit people to serve their full sentences, regardless of an extensive

  Yesterday, February 23, 2023, within the space of one hour, three teenagers were shot in the dying City of Rochester, New York. All three were shot in what has become known as the "Fatal Crescent," that section of our fair city in which most of our violence and homicides occur. The Crescent corresponds roughly to Rochester's ghettoes. The shootings occurred at different locations within the Crescent. One was pronounced dead at the scene.  He was Rochester's ninth homicide victim 0f 2023. Another of the three was taken to the hospital and into surgery with life-threatening injuries. The victim of the first shooting was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Thank heavens for small mercies, anyway. There is an old saying, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." A "rod," in criminal parlance, also means a pistol. And young people are somehow getting hold of lots of rods these days, always illegally. Therefore, they are not getting sp

 In 2015, three people were shot and killed at Rochester's Boys and Girls Club while exiting a basketball game. It was a drive-by shooting. Three others were injured during that incident. Three men were eventually charged in connection with that triple homicide: Johnny Blackshell, Jalen Everett and Michael Mathis. Only Blackshell was convicted for his part in the triple slaying. The other two were eventually acquitted. Not everyone believed that they were innocent. Two years after his acquittal, in 2019, Everett was shot to death in a car in Rochester's historic Maplewood neighborhood. It used to be so peaceful and quiet there. Just coincidence? Or was Nemesis at work? Nemesis was the ancient Greek goddess who personified retribution. She is notoriously slow but ultimately effective when the laws of men fail. This past Saturday, January 22, Nemesis struck again.  The result was Rochester's second homicide of the year. The victim? Why none other than Michael Mathis, the othe

Last night, on Rochester's northwest side, three women were shot. Two were killed. The third will apparently survive. The two deceased ladies were Rochester's 72nd and 73rd homicides respectively for the year so far. It has been decided that this was a murder-suicide. On Sunday night, a man was shot on Norton Street on Rochester's northeast side. He will survive. Yet, 24 hours previously on that same street, a 27-year-old man was shot multiple times and killed when the driver of the vehicle pulled into a driveway. There were two children in the back seat of that vehicle, one was the child of the victim. Fortunately, neither the children nor the driver was hurt...this time. Because the deadly feral urban humanoids who roam our fair city usually aren't overly concerned about children being wounded or killed. That's why the monsters who drive through our streets, shooting into homes are to be feared, because they are completely oblivious as to who is inside those homes

Some jokes are just too obvious to be funny. Such is the case of Rochester's Police Accountability Board. Originally the brainchild of Rochester's cop-hating City Council and ex-Mayor Lovely Warren, it has done nothing in the two and a half years since its creation other than to annoy and demoralize the Rochester Police Department and spend millions of dollars that it can't account for, which is pissing off the city's taxpayers and embarrassing City Council. The greatest public relations scam since the Fast Ferry, City Government convinced people through subliminal messaging that they needed and wanted the PAB until people demanded a referendum vote on the matter, which the cop-hating City government graciously consented to do. Three-quarters of the people who voted in November 2019 wanted it. But only one-third of those registered to vote in Rochester bothered to go to the polls. Such is the failure of democracy in the City of Rochester. Content with this "majorit

The world has clearly gone mad. The war in Ukraine, where Putin is playing the bully, has become the world's latest spectator blood sport, with most nations crying "shame," imposing sanctions, sending the beleaguered Ukrainians money and weapons but not really otherwise involving themselves. Here in the United States, we see the Biden regime collapsing owing to the ineptitude of the administration, its inability to exhibit any sort of leadership and the corruption within the Biden family as more of the First Son's criminal activity is finally being exposed by the same liberal news media that spent years denying it and covering it up. Nude photos and videos of the First Son engaged in sex acts and drug use, while not even good pornography, are merely a sideshow, yet they reveal the moral turpitude of a regime long protected and supported by progressive Democrat politicians. Worse still, we are treated to the regular misinformed pronouncements of Biden's spokeswoman

They first make mad. Yesterday (June 18, 2021), Rochester experienced its fourth gang-style execution in a week. What distinguished this murder from the others was that the victim was a woman. She was killed by gunshots in her car in the presence of her two daughters, aged three and eight. The children were uninjured. But that the murderers would undertake an execution under those conditions says a great deal about the sort of monsters who are members of those gangs. The reaction to this latest homicide, the thirtieth in Rochester so far this year, was surprising. Or maybe not. Mayoral candidate Malik Evans issued a terse, probably ghost-written, statement of sorrow. Incumbent mayor Lovely Warren said nothing about it at all. Instead, she called a press conference to complain that the Monroe County Board of Elections was conspiring against her in the Democratic Primary Election. There are priorities, after all. Earlier in the week, after the second such gangland slaying took place just