North Winton Village residents share concerns about crime with Rochester police

ROCHESTER, N.Y. People in Rochester’s North Winton Village are pretty frustrated when it comes to all the car break-ins and burglaries in their community.

Monday night, they aired their grievances in a meeting with Rochester police looking for a solution. Although violent crimes exist in every part of the city the North Winton Village and the southeast quadrant, in general, has seen less of these crimes but are seeing more of an increase when it comes to property crimes.

Rochester police say they’re doing everything they can to combat crimes in the city but also admit they’re just too short-staffed to handle the number of crimes being committed. Frustrated area residents feel not enough is being done to protect their lives or property.

North Winton Village Association Co-Chair Mary Coffey says the recent number of smash-and-grabs at businesses in her community is alarming.

“We have wonderful businesses,” Coffey said. “We don’t want to lose them, and our neighbors, they’re having their packages stolen. They don’t feel safe.”

At times Monday night’s association meeting was quite divided between different groups working against each other. Lori Thomas said crime in general is out of hand.

“We can’t punish our young people for doing young people stuff, OK?” Thomas said. “We have to punish the system for allowing our young people to do young people stuff because they don’t have positive things to do.”

Thomas goes on to say this is nothing new.

“Until we come together as a city, and not as individual neighborhoods, we can’t change City Council legislation and they’re not going to do that because they’re making too much money off us,” Thomas said.

Coffey is optimistic that change can happen.

“Together we say to government, look it you got to do some things to stop it, and we all have to work together to make it better,” she said.

Crime wasn’t the only issue discussed tonight. The association also talked about code enforcement zoning and the lack of adequate equitable education in the city.