Sanctuary city officials in upstate New York held a press conference on Wednesday where they blasted members of their own police force for coming to the aid of Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents who stopped a van carrying up to eight occupants.
Officers with the Rochester Police Department (RPD) were called to the scene on Monday by the federal agencies to respond on an emergency basis. While responding, RPD ordered the suspects out of the vehicle and helped put them in handcuffs, police said.
Democratic Rochester Mayor Malik Evans said that the actions of the police officers were against the city’s sanctuary resolution and a police general order, which prohibits police from enforcing immigration laws.
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Evans and Rochester Police Department (RPD) Chief David Smith held a press briefing to sound off on the officers who answered a call from Border Patrol.
“The officers on the scene verbally directed the occupants to get out of the vehicle and this is against our policy,” Evans said. “Our policy is crystal clear, city police officers do not help or participate in federal immigration activities.”
Video from the incident shows what appears to be several unmarked Border Patrol and HSI vehicles surrounding a maroon-colored work van that had ladders affixed to its roof. A police vehicle then arrives on the scene and two officers get out.
Federal agents handcuffed the driver, while Rochester police handcuffed other people removed from the van, according to WXXINews.
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Bystander footage of the incident shows a woman arguing with two HSI agents and demanding to see her husband, saying, “They’re not illegal,” per WXXINews.
It’s unclear how many people were detained and for what reason. The city is about 90 miles east of Niagara Falls and the U.S. – Canadian border.
Evans said he instructed Police Chief David Smith to remind every member of the force about the city’s directive. Smith also sided with Evans and scolded the officers.
“From watching the body-worn camera footage, what is concerning to me is, despite the fact that we were called, we went lights and sirens,” Evans said of the incident on Whitney Road near Lyell Avenue.
“I see in the video a total lack of urgency on the part of multiple Border Patrol officers at the scene,” Smith said.
Smith read out a debriefing a lieutenant gave officers following the incident.
“If this happens again, we are not to remove people from vehicles. We are not to be handcuffing subjects,” Smith said. “We are not to be doing pat frisks on subjects, and we are absolutely not going to be detaining them or putting them into our cars.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Border Patrol and ICE but did not immediately receive a response.
The Rochester Police Locust Club union defended the officers’ actions and called Evans’ statements “a complete overreaction” to what was a call to help on an emergency basis.
The union said in a press release that when police arrived on the scene, the occupants were not being co-operative and that the police did not initiate the police stop. The union said officers had no information about the van’s occupants nor did they ask about their immigration status.
“As with any law enforcement agency that indicates it has a critical situation in progress within the City of Rochester, officers responded under lights and sirens … expecting their fellow law enforcement officers to be in distress when they got there,” the press release reads.
They said that the officers “did absolutely nothing wrong, other than to answer a call for help from another agency.”
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