What to Know
- On Thursday, La’Ron Singletary, the former Rochester police chief fired over his department’s handling of last year’s suffocation death of Daniel Prude, announced he is running for Congress.
- Singletary plans to run for the Republican Party and unseat two-term Democrat, Joe Morelle.
- Singletary was fired in 2020 over the death of Daniel Prude, who was experiencing a mental health crisis at the time of his killing.
The former Rochester police chief who was fired over his department’s handling of last year’s suffocation death of Daniel Prude announced Thursday he is running for Congress.
La’Ron Singletary, who recently changed his registration from Democrat to Republican, is seeking to unseat two-term Democrat Joe Morelle in New York’s 25th Congressional District, which includes Rochester.
“I stand before you today to announce my candidacy to represent the 25th Congressional District of New York,” Singletary said at a Rochester news conference where he was joined by Monroe County Republican leaders.
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TV station WROC reported that the former police chief said that if elected, he would focus on empowering the police.
“People do not want to defund the police,” Singletary said. “In fact, people want to keep the police. We have seen murders rise. The number of shootings are going up, and the number of officers are going down.”
Singletary was fired in September 2020 by Mayor Lovely Warren over the death of Prude, who was suffering from a mental health crisis on March 23, 2020, when Rochester officers police placed a “spit hood” over his head and restrained him. Prude died a week later after being taken off life support.
Warren and Singletary have accused each other of lying about the circumstances of Prude’s death.
Warren last month announced her intention to resign as part of a deal to settle unrelated charges of violating campaign finance rules during her 2017 reelection campaign.
Singletary, who was appointed police chief in 2019 after a 20-year career with the Rochester Police Department, filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission last week.
According to his campaign website, he supports school choice, the Second Amendment right of Americans “to protect and defend themselves” and ”enforcing immigration laws for those entering illegally into the United States.”
Morelle said in a statement that did not directly address Singletary’s candidacy: “There will be a time for politics, but that day is hardly today. I remain focused on providing the real solutions that hardworking families in our community deserve.”
