DeafROC

Hi Everyone,

I spend some time trying to get the Rochester Police Department to realize that there were misunderstanding and communication breakdowns between many Deaf and Hard of Hearing people and their police officers. For some funny reason they felt it was a one time thing.

On August 2007, a deaf person got pulled over and had a difficult time communicating with the Police Department. As an agreement between the Rochester Police Department (RPD) and Regional Center for Independent Living (RCIL), we agreed that the police need to hear what the deaf people have to say. And, we agreed that we will plan a forum where the community members will be able to tell the police department of problems they confront, and the RPD would be responsible to answer those questions. In order to show them how well organize they are.

As result, I have brought together a committee of 5 people that include 3 deaf people and 2 police officers. All of us worked together to plan a forum that happen on Wednesday night of May 21st, in Rochester New York.

On that very day, this event was very successful, and the Police Chief Moore was very well pleased. He even wants another forum sometime in the fall to follow up on these issues. What a great accomplishment!!

Below is Chris Hilderbrant’s, my supervisor, email send to everyone in the Advocacy building, on the very next day and some news links for you to enjoy and read…

Hope you enjoy this…

Dean DeRusso
Deaf Systems Advocate
Regional Center for Independent Living
Advocacy and Independent Living Services for Individuals
497 State Street
Rochester, NY 14608

Sorenson VP: 585 546-7598
VP: 74.39.189.195
Voice Callers: (877) 467-4877 ext 07598
TTY: (585) 697-1604
Fax: 585.546.7577
E-Mail: dderusso@rcil.org

From: Chris Hilderbrant
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 9:59 AM
To: Everyone-RCIL; Everyone-CDR
Subject: Update on Froum with the Police Department

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to give a brief update on the forum that RCIL hosted last night with the Deaf community and the Rochester Police Department. The event was held at the Rochester School for the Deaf with about 70 people in attendance and about ten representatives from RPD, including Chief David Moore.

I thought the forum was a great beginning to what should become a sustained open dialogue about how to improve relations and reduce problems between RPD and people who are deaf and hard of hearing. One cool thing for me is that it was the first time we have been able to provide CART transcription services (basically live captioning on a BIG screen) and it seemed to work well for the most part.

I want to thank Dean and his committee for all their efforts in pulling the event together and Marsha, Marty and Tracey for being there to support the event.

There was a lot of media coverage, the links I could find are below. I also saw coverage last night on Channel 13. Unfortunately, none of the video clips online are captioned (unless I’m missing something). Rnews does have a word for word transcription of their story.

Channel 10:
http://www.whec.com/article/stories/S452459.shtml?cat=566

R News (Channel 9)
http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=61455&rnews_story_type=18

Democrat and Chronicle (promo from before the event)
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008805200338

There will be pictures available on the server later today.

Chris Hilderbrant
Director of Advocacy
Center for Disability Rights, Inc.
497 State Street
Rochester, New York 14608
(585) 546-7510 (Voice)
(585) 546-7512 (TTY)
(585) 546-7577 (Fax)
www.rochestercdr.org