The ex-police chief in Rochester, N.Y., La’Ron Singletary, has focused on public safety in his bid to unseat the incumbent Democrat, Joseph Morelle.
Of all the lives upended in the tragic case of Daniel Prude, La’Ron Singletary’s may be the most curious.
Mr. Singletary was the police chief in Rochester when Mr. Prude, a unarmed Black man, died after being restrained by police officers on a cold night in March 2020. Months later, the victim’s family released body-cam footage showing him naked, handcuffed, hooded and pinned facedown on the cold pavement by the police.
The resulting uproar and accusations of a cover-up led to protests across the city and cost Mr. Singletary his job. But two years after being fired, he has re-emerged as a Republican candidate for Congress.
His campaign was initially seen as a long-shot bid in what is usually a safe Democratic seat. But with Election Day just a few days away, Mr. Singletary has turned the race into a dogfight, largely by hammering the incumbent, Representative Joseph D. Morelle, on the issue of crime.
Democrats across the nation are being forced to play defense on crime, including in New York, where a 2019 bail reform law — and a series of high-profile murders and other acts of mayhem — has given Republicans a powerful talking point. That includes congressional campaigns from here to Long Island, as well as in the governor’s race, where Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is frantically trying to hold off Representative Lee Zeldin, a conservative Republican with deep ties to former President Donald J. Trump.
But it is a particularly potent talking point in Rochester, which has the one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the nation.
That the point is being spread by Mr. Singletary, who was fired and implicated by a damning independent report commissioned by the City Council in Rochester, is something that Mr. Morelle finds absurd.
“For someone who has never accounted for his actions in the Daniel Prude thing, I think it’s a little disingenuous for him to say that he has the answers,” said Mr. Morelle, adding, “Everybody should be held accountable.”
The Prude report found that Mr. Singletary and other city officials had purposefully withheld details about the incident, in part “for fear that its release might cause civil unrest.”
Mr. Singletary blames “politics” for his dismissal and defended his officers’ actions. Still, he says there are lessons to be learned.
“What we need to do moving forward is make sure that incident doesn’t happen again,” he said in an interview, mentioning investments in mental health and police training. “But what we do know is that those officers performed in the manner in which they were trained.”
For his part, Mr. Singletary says that his message of law and order will carry the day in a district — the 25th Congressional, encompassing Rochester and its suburbs — that President Biden won by nearly 20 points.
“People are pissed off about what’s been happening: If you don’t have public safety, forget everything else,” he said at a recent event for retired police officers in Rochester. “We’ve got eyes on this race. And there’s help coming.”
Indeed, in a surprising move last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee announced it would start spending “coordinated $$$” in the race, calling Mr. Morelle “flailing” in his quest for a third term. A top Democrat political action committee, House Majority PAC, responded by pouring $275,000 into ads, according to Politico, an apparent indication of concern about Mr. Morelle’s campaign.
Adding to the intrigue is a potential inversion of the district’s racial and demographic fault lines: Mr. Singletary, who has campaigned with Mr. Zeldin, is a native of Rochester’s large Black community, long a solid Democratic voting bloc, while Mr. Morelle hails from one of its largely white suburbs, where Mr. Singletary hopes to win over voters.
Gerald Gamm, a professor of political science and history at the University of Rochester, said that Mr. Singletary has a path to victory because his law enforcement experience gives him credibility with voters concerned about crime and other issues that favor Republicans.
“If you can get even a small fraction of votes from Black people in Rochester and combine those with more traditional Republican votes in the suburbs, along with votes from some independent voters who are concerned about crime or concerned about inflation and concerned about the economy, you build a winning coalition,” Professor Gamm said.
James M. Blount, 79, the publisher of a local magazine focusing on the Black community, was even more succinct.
“I think it’s closer than you think,” said Mr. Blount. “You can’t take nothing for granted.”
Rochester itself is deeply Democratic: It hasn’t had a Republican mayor in nearly a half-century, and the party holds every seat in the five-person City Council. But the legislature in Monroe County, which includes the city and much of the district, is almost evenly split between the two parties, with its Democratic president, Sabrina LaMar, caucusing with Republicans to give that party the majority.
Ms. LaMar, who has feuded with Mr. Morelle in the past, said that many Black residents were still upset over Mr. Prude’s death, and that distrust of law enforcement remains high. At the same time, she believes that Mr. Singletary’s emphasis on crime could appeal to some Black voters.
“The same people who have been affected by Daniel Prude, especially within the inner city, have also been affected by homicides from gun violence,” said Ms. LaMar, who is Black, noting a spate of recent shootings, including the killing last year of her nephew. “And it seems like no one is doing anything about it.”
Both candidates are well-known in the district, with deep roots. Mr. Morelle, 65, is a former county legislator from Irondequoit, north of the city, where he lives just a few blocks from the house where he grew up and where his mother still lives. He served in the State Assembly for 14 terms, rising to the rank of majority leader, before running for Congress in 2018 to fill the seat of Representative Louse Slaughter, a liberal and longtime congresswoman from Rochester who died in office.
With a fireplug physique and a friendly demeanor, Mr. Morelle is a natural retail politician, happily shaking hands and making conversation and discussing issues with constituents.
“Everybody knows Joe,” said Monique Latimer, a funeral director in Rochester. “He’s like an old shoe.”
Asked about his re-election prospects, Mr. Morelle said he intended to concentrate on local economic issues and broader Democratic accomplishments, including gun control laws, lowering prescription drug costs and dealing with a wobbly Covid-time economy.
“Everybody likes to talk about, ‘What’s the environment, What is the polling showing?’” Mr. Morelle said, while canvassing in a Democrat-friendly neighborhood in east Rochester. “I think we have worked really hard in the last two years with the slimmest of majorities, and have actually fashioned an impressive list of legislative victories.”
Mr. Singletary, 42, grew up in a hard environment in southwest Rochester: His mother was a drug user when he was a child and died when he was 24; his father worked at Xerox, one of Rochester’s once-mighty companies, for more than 30 years. He became a police officer in 2000, rising steadily in the ranks before becoming chief in 2019, just a year before Mr. Prude’s death.
“I have a lot of friends and family in this community, and people know who La’ Ron Singletary is,” he said in the interview. “I think that’s the biggest key.”
A former Democrat, he says he switched parties last year before announcing his candidacy, in large part because of the “defund the police” movement.
And while he quotes Ronald Reagan — “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me” — Mr. Singletary is still trying to strike a bipartisan tone in a district where nearly 60 percent of voters are registered Democrats.
“My campaign slogan is, ‘It’s not about the party, it’s about the people,” he said. “When I went to people’s homes, they called 911 for me to solve a problem. And they didn’t ask me whether I was a Democrat policeman or the Republican policeman. I didn’t ask them whether they were a Democrat or Republican who needed assistance.”
Mr. Singletary was fired as police chief in September 2020 by the city’s then-mayor, Lovely Warren; he had already tendered his resignation after footage of the death of Mr. Prude — who was acting erratically and was later found to have PCP in his system — was released. Earlier this year, the city paid Mr. Singletary a $75,000 settlement in a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Still, the incident continues to hover over his campaign: In early October, the city paid $12 million to Mr. Prude’s family, bringing new attention to the actions of the police and other city officials, including Mr. Singletary.
In a recent gathering at the Locust Club in Rochester — the headquarters of the city’s police union — some spoke disparagingly about Mr. Prude, who had a lengthy criminal record, and viewed Mr. Singletary as the victim.
“I highly respect him,” said Rick DeLorme, 61, a retired Rochester police officer who said he was an independent and would support Mr. Singletary. “I believe he’s a man of principle.”
The two candidates crossed paths at a recent luncheon at the Mount Olivet Church in downtown Rochester, where the disparity in political experience and connections was evident: During the hourlong meet-and-greet, the mostly Black crowd lined up to speak to Mr. Morelle, while Mr. Singletary ate lunch, largely alone, with an aide.
Still, even some of those voting for Mr. Morelle said that they do not necessarily blame Mr. Singletary for the way the city handled Mr. Prude’s death.
“I think he got a raw deal,” said Robert R. Brooks, 79, a Republican who said he liked Mr. Singletary personally but was voting for Mr. Morelle because abortion rights were important to him. “But Joe is just more in tune with my way of thinking.”
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