RPD addresses recent violence after 5 teens shot in 1 night

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Police are responding to a recent string of teen shootings. Tuesday night, five teens were shot. Police say that they don’t believe the incidents were random.

It comes as new data from Rochester police shows the city has seen close to 400 shootings in all age ranges this year, and the number of teens shot is rising. This year, 60 gunshot victims have been teens. Ten years ago, the number was 18.

Police could not give any more details on the investigation into the five teens who were shot Tuesday night. What we do know is that there were two separate shootings. Police found three of the victims when they responded to a call for shots fired on Henion Street. Two of them were 16-year-old girls from Rochester who were shot in the upper body and the third was a 15-year-old boy from Rochester who was shot in the lower body. A 16-year-old girl was also shot on Rochester’s northeast side on the 1200 block of North Street.

“They may be connected, they may not be connected, we just don’t know yet. Hopefully — the investigations — hopefully, we can make headway in them, there were about 45 minutes apart [from each other] the shootings they were both drive by shootings. You had victims walking down the street and they were shot at by a vehicle driving by,” Captain Frank Umbrino said.

News10NBC asked if these shootings from Tuesday were connected to the death of a 15-year-old from last week. RPD said they can’t make any comments on that right now.