The morning after a chaotic Saturday night in Rochester, an unanswered security alarm still rang at the Rainbow store on Lyell Avenue. Miles Jaye lives in the neighborhood near Lyell Shopping Plaza. As he dropped the mail in a postal box in the plaza, he shook his head as he surveyed the damage.
“To me, if you tear up everything that we got, where do we go?” He asked. “Where are we gonna go now?”
Jaye is a customer at many of the stores which were looted this weekend. He says he understands the frustration many fellow black people feel, especially following the killing of a black man by a police officer in Minnesota. But, he feels looting has no place in the discussion.
“We can demonstrate, we can walk down the streets, we can block streets, that's fine,” he said. “But to destroy your own neighborhood, then you don't have a neighborhood to go to.“
Shattered describes much of Rochester this weekend. A rally organized by Back Lives Matter, organized to protest police brutality and the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, was well attended and largely peaceful. A chaotic night followed with multiple stores looted and damaged in Rochester and nearby suburbs.
On East Ridge Road in northeast Rochester, several stores were damaged. Joseph Poynan owns U Trade, a pawn shop. He described Saturday night as “a war zone” with a constant swarm of looters who were shooed away by police, only to return after law enforcement left.
Poynan shared video clips of looters running in and out of stores, carrying handfuls of items. Some set a dumpster on fire. His store’s windows were smashed, though he says nothing was taken.
“You go through through the gamut of emotions,” said Poynan. “I mean, kind of confusion as to why are these people doing this? This has nothing to do with anything that I can remotely correlate.”
Poynan says he had a sense of anger mixed with fear as he tried to protect his business. Several doors down, another shop owner felt the same emotions.
“It was definitely scary,” said Adam Mohamed, owner of a sneaker and apparel shop in the plaza. “It was crazy.”
Mohamed’s store was looted over and over — for several hours. Inside the vast space, there is almost nothing left.
“You can’t stop them at all,” he said of the looters. “There’s like more than 100 people. You can’t stop anything.”
The day after a night of ugliness in Rochester, there were many signs of hope. Neighbors helped store owners clean up broken glass and debris. At Murphy’s law, the east end bar, total strangers helped employees sweep away the glass from smashed windows. It was a scene repeated all over town.
Outside Mohamed’s store, several men and women grabbed brooms and helped him pick up the pieces. They pledged to support his business, once it reopens.
“If something’s out of place, it’s time for us to clean it up,” said Demond Meeks, a Rochester resident and candidate for the state Assembly 137th district.
Still, the root cause of anger and unrest in Rochester — and the nation — remains unresolved.
“I think the message still stands that black lives matter,” said Meeks. “And we cannot allow the authorities that be to continue to treat people as less than.”
“I understand the anger, I understand the explosion, but not to this level,” said Jaye. “If we destroy everything in our own city, what do we have left?”