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Top City Officials Meet With Civil Rights Activist On Police Brutality Claim

Rochester's Mayor and Police Chief met with members of the United Christian Leadership Ministry Friday to talk about allegations of police brutality against a 17 year old city youth.

The president of the ministry, Reverend Lewis Stewart, and the family of Ricky Bryant, claim the youth was brutalized by officers earlier this month when they were responding to a report of someone with a gun in the Remington Street area. Bryant was never charged, and Stewart says the teen suffered serious injuries.

“The concern with me is that the police did use excessive force, which was unwarranted; racial profiling was used here  in this case identifying Ricky Bryant as a suspect in which he was not." Bryant said.

At the meeting Friday, Stewart was shown some video from a city blue light camera that was stationed in the area, and he says while it shows the teen's bicycle falling to the ground, it doesn't show much else.

Ciminelli says the camera didn't have a good angle, but he wanted to share what was available. 

“It does show the officers making their initial approach in how they approached, and unfortunately shortly after that the action moves around the corner of a building and the camera’s blocked , but we did want to show them what we had just in an effort to say this is what we’re dealing with," Ciminelli told reporters.

Rochester Police are conducting an internal investigation and will then present the findings to police officials and the mayor.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.