Law enforcement speaks on violent night in Rochester

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — It was a violent evening in Rochester Tuesday night. Five people were injured in two separate shootings.

News10NBC saw police speeding to the scene of one of the shootings, just blocks from our station. News10NBC’s Hailie Higgins spoke with investigators Wednesday.

The shooting was right on Savannah Street — also minutes away from the Strong Museum of Play. Four people were shot there.

Three hours later there was a shooting on I-390 right by the Chili Avenue exit. It ended at the nearby Sunoco in Gates. 

Police say that a group of fifteen to maybe twenty people were in a parking lot on Savannah Street when a fight broke out around 8:15 p.m. At least two people fired several shots — striking four people. 

Two women, ages 63 and 29, were found at the scene when police arrived. A third tried to get in his car and leave, but crashed nearby. Minutes later, police found a 24-year-old man at Strong Memorial Hospital who had also been shot on Savannah Street.

A few hours later, gates police responded to a Sunoco for a shooting — only to bring in the Sheriff’s Office when they realized it happened on the expressway. Police say the victim is a 30-year-old man.

That victim has been released form the hospital.

A manager at the Sunoco showed News10NBC the surveillance footage, where watchers can see the car pull up with a bullet hole in its window.  

News10NBC talked to investigators from both cases. 

“You’ve got on Savannah Street where the shooting occurred. You’ve got on Main Street where the car crash end of the pursuit occurred. And then you’ve got Strong Hospital where a fourth victim arrived. So then you’ve got three different scenes. It’s a lot on our manpower on our workload, it takes quite a few officers,” says Lt. Greg Bello with the Rochester Police Department.

“The more information we have to figure out when we respond, slows down the investigation, right? We have to figure out where it happened what happened, instead of getting into who did it, what did they do, and all those details,” says Deputy Brendan Hurley with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

For those in the suburbs, gun violence feels more prevalent. But despite Tuesday night’s quadruple shooting, violence is becoming less frequent in the city.

“Our shooting victims, our murders are down significantly this year, I think between 25-30%. And we’re going to continue to try to drive both of those down,” says Bello. “We’ve got to get to a level where we’re not just carrying — illegally carrying firearms, so that when a dispute breaks out it’s not an option to pull out a firearm.”

“Unfortunately it’s something we’re seeing all too often in our community now,” says Hurley. “It doesn’t matter where you live or what township you live in, it happens everywhere. And it’s just too much, and we just can’t continue to tolerate this.”

All five victims were treated at Strong Memorial Hospital. The most serious is in stable condition. Investigators tell News10NBC that no one has been charged yet in either case.

Police are continuing to follow up on leads and piece together the two chaotic scenes from Tuesday night.