News10NBC Investigates: Family of accused cop killer speaks publicly for the first time and complains about jail conditions

ROCHESTER, N.Y. For the first time publicly, the family of Kelvin Vickers is talking about him, the alleged crime, why he was in Rochester and the conditions at the Monroe County Jail. 

“So as far as I know Kelvin hasn’t been eating,” his mother said.

Vickers’ mother asked us not to use her name. She also wore a mask in our Zoom interview to conceal part of her face for her safety. 

She and Vickers’ girlfriend, Chay Wallace, say Vickers is has been in a cell for up to 20 hours a day and they’re concerned about his food. 

“That makes me want to have him switched and I don’t know how to do that,” his mother said. 

Brean: “How do you know this? What’s your proof of this?”

Chay Wallace: “We talk about it on the phone. If the phone calls are being recorded then they would have the proof from the phone calls.”

Brean: “So these are allegations that Kelvin is making to you when you talk to him on the phone?”

Mother: “Yes. Yes.”

Vickers has been in jail since July 21 when he was arrested for the murder of RPD Officer Tony Mazurkiewicz, the shooting of Officer Sino Seng and a 15-year-old girl hit by a stray bullet. 

Vickers was released from a maximum security prison in Massachusetts on May 24. 

He has no known family or friends in Rochester. 

Brean: “Why do you think Kelvin was in Rochester in the first place?”

Mother: “I can’t comment on that. I don’t know.”

Wallace: “I just thought he was going to visit you know, because people from Boston we all go out there for Times Square and stuff like that to see New York so that’s why I assumed he was out there for.”

Brean: “Yeah, but Times Square is New York City. We’re in Rochester in western New York.”

Wallace: “Yeah, I’m just talking about New York itself.”

Vickers’ girlfriend Chay Wallace says Vickers got a job and was with her for a month and a half after he was released from prison.

“He wasn’t out there (in Rochester) for long because he was with me for the first two months he was out,” she said. 

Brean: “One of the questions we’re trying to figure out up here is why would Kelvin, who doesn’t appear to have any relatives or friends in Rochester, be in this city two and a half months after he got out of prison? And we’re just trying to figure that out.”

Mother: “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Wallace: “(Inaudible) having friends don’t mean that he don’t know people there. We don’t know the people that’s up there.”

Mother: “Absolutely.” 

Shortly after the shooting of officers Mazurkiewicz and Seng, RPD says they found Vickers hiding in a crawl space in a vacant house three doors down from the shooting scene. One of the charges against Vickers says he knew or reasonably should have known that he was shooting at police. 

Brean: “When you learned about what he was arrested for and what he’s accused of doing, what did you think?”

Mother: “I said – wrong kid. Wrong kid. Wrong kid. I’ll say this and I’ll leave it here — I didn’t know what he was doing out there. So I can’t say anything to you because I know just as much as you do.”

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office says he has received no formal complaint. Vickers’ mother and girlfriend told me they’ve struggled to be able to do that online and on the phone. 

Vickers’ attorney in the Public Defenders’ office, Joshua Stubbe, says he inquired to the sheriff’s office about Vickers being in “administrative segregation” also known as the “Box.” 

Wednesday afternoon, the sheriff’s office emailed me to say Vickers is now in the general jail population and out of his cell for at least seven hours a day.