Protesters at Rochester Standoff: 'There's No Such Thing as a Blue Life'

Protesters heckled police in Rochester, New York, during a tense showdown in a residential neighborhood on Saturday night and early Sunday morning.

“There’s no such thing as a blue life!” one man shouted, through a bullhorn, at a row of police. The moment was captured on video by filmmaker and journalist Brendan Gutenschwager.

Police pushed demonstrators back from the Rochester Public Safety Building, which has been the target of recent “Black Lives Matter” protests over the death of Daniel Prude.

Prude, an African American man, was arrested in March after running naked through the city. Video of his arrest showed that police had placed a “spit hood” over his head to prevent him from spitting at officers. He died a week later, and allegedly had drugs in his system.

Some of the protests have been violent. On Saturday night, there were some scuffles between demonstrators and police.

Motorcycles arrived to support the protest, creating smoke to interfere with the police.

At one point, protesters targeted Elijah Schaffer, a reporter for The Blaze.

There was a standoff for several hours on Child Street between police and protesters, according to local reporters on the scene.

Some of the protesters also appeared to have occupied several residential buildings and lawns nearby — though it was not clear whether they had done so with the permission of the residents, according to Gutenschwager.

The crowd later dispersed early Sunday morning.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.