Fifty years of Rochester (NY) police reform yielded few returns (good read)

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/fifty-years-of-rochester-police-reform-yielded-few-returns/Content?oid=12192039


Denise Hawkins was 18 when she was shot and killed by officer Michael Leach in November 1975.

September 03, 2020

The earliest blooms of police reform in Rochester, measures intended to address ills that still haunt the city today, sprung from what is now a vacant lot on Thurston Road on a November night in 1975.

There, in a basement unit of what was then the Apollo Apartments, a teenage mother argued with her husband, who was said to have had a thing for pushing her around. That night, 18-year-old Denise Hawkins would be pushed so far she would wind up dead.

The argument got physical, as it often did, and the couple tussled into the kitchen, where Hawkins brandished a knife and slashed her husband’s cheek. Minutes later, there was a pounding at the front door.

“Police!” an officer yelled from the other side, the door reportedly bowing outward from the battering inside.

“Look out, she’s coming out with a knife!” the husband shouted.

Hawkins, still gripping the knife tightly in her hand, spilled into the exterior hallway, where two officers awaited with guns drawn. “Drop it!” the officers shouted in unison.

She took two more steps before one of the officers, Michael Leach, a 22-year-old rookie, put a bullet in her chest, killing her instantly.

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Police reform won't happen until the police are *forced* to reform themselves, or they're replaced by completely new law enforcement entities.

[crickets]

1. K&R for visibility.