A Democrat mayor in upstate New York is rebuking his own police officers for assisting federal immigration agents during a recent traffic stop that resulted in multiple detainments. Rochester Mayor Malik Evans and Police Chief David Smith held a press conference Wednesday to blast RPD officers for responding to an emergency call from Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Their crime? Helping federal agents handcuff the occupants of a suspicious van.
According to reports, the van had up to eight people inside. Officers arrived with lights and sirens and assisted in removing and securing the individuals. But that swift coordination was apparently too much for city leaders who say the action violated Rochester’s “sanctuary city” policy, which prohibits cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
“Our policy is crystal clear,” Evans said. “City police officers do not help or participate in federal immigration activities.”
Chief Smith went further, reading a new directive aloud: “We are not to remove people from vehicles. We are not to be handcuffing subjects… and we are absolutely not going to be detaining them or putting them into our cars.”
Bystander video shows HSI agents and RPD officers at the scene. One woman is heard arguing with agents, insisting “They’re not illegal” as her husband is detained.
While the city’s Democrat leaders chastised officers for cooperating with federal law enforcement, the police union took a starkly different stance. The Rochester Police Locust Club defended its members, calling the mayor’s reaction “a complete overreaction.”
The union emphasized that officers had no prior knowledge about the van’s occupants and were simply responding to what was described as an emergency situation. “Officers responded under lights and sirens … expecting their fellow law enforcement officers to be in distress when they got there,” the union said in a statement.
“They did absolutely nothing wrong, other than to answer a call for help from another agency.”
The van was stopped roughly 90 miles from the Canadian border, a hotspot in recent months due to surging illegal entries from the north. Yet city leaders were more concerned with virtue signaling their allegiance to sanctuary policies than thanking their own cops for backing up federal partners.
The incident underscores the growing disconnect between law enforcement officers tasked with protecting communities and the progressive politicians more concerned about enforcing woke sanctuary policies than actual laws.
As for the feds, ICE and Border Patrol haven’t issued a statement—yet. But one thing is clear: in Biden-era blue cities, it’s not criminal aliens being held accountable—it’s the cops.
