Six killed in Rochester in 55-hour spate of violence. Mayor, police 'beyond frustrated'

Six people were killed in a 55-hour span over the weekend in Rochester.

Rochester Police Chief David Smith on Monday morning said he was "beyond frustrated" by the most recent spate of homicides, at least some of which sparked from disputes between acquaintances that escalated into violence.

In the 55-hour span - between 6 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. Monday - six people were killed within city limits during four separate incidents. Five were shot to death and one man was fatally stabbed. None of the victims were teens or young adults. The youngest was 29 and the eldest was 68.

The homicides included two people - a man and a woman both in their 40s - who were shot to death early Monday morning on Rialto Street in northeast Rochester. On Sunday night, a 68-year-old man was fatally stabbed , allegedly by a neighbor in a community room at Winton Garden Towers on East Main Street following a dispute between the pair. Two men (29 and 31) were killed in a triple shooting on Lyell Avenue early Saturday and a 54-year-old man who was shot to death at an Avenue D residence on Friday night.

In all, 20 people have been killed in homicides in Rochester in 2024, according to RPD's Open Data Portal.

During a mid-morning news conference at Rochester's Public Safety Building, Rochester Mayor Malik Evans said that the community needs to look inward to determine that this sort of behavior "is not normal."

“This is a city we like to be able to celebrate," Evans said. "But then the next moment when someone disrespects someone, so they decide to pull out their gun and just execute the people who they were having disagreements with."

Someone in an argument can usually come back from a fist fight. "But if someone has a firearm and their temper is hot and they escalate, you see what we saw this past weekend," Evans said.

Smith and Evans both asked for community members to speak up when they see or hear something - as they did with homicides in April that resulted in arrests. Officers need community support, he said, to hold people accountable.

“Although we can’t bring these victims back, everyone with information about these senseless murders owes it to these victims to come forward with information and bring accountability to those that wreak havoc in our community,” Smith said during the news conference.

Anyone with information about any of the weekend homicides is asked to call 911, RPD's Major Crimes Unit at (585) 428-7157 or CrimeStoppers at (585) 423-9300.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Six killed in Rochester in 55-hour spate of violence. Mayor, police 'beyond frustrated'