RPD: 2025 year-to-date gun numbers, growing ghost-gun problem; coalition green-lights second gun-trace report

Captain Murrah, speaking for the Rochester Police Department at the Rock Against Gun Violence Coalition’s August meeting, said the city recorded 18 year-to-date homicides, 13 of them gun-related, and 91 shooting incidents involving 100 victims as of that morning. He gave a breakdown of weapons recovered: 269 handguns, 76 long guns and 41 ghost guns year to date, and for July specifically 38 handguns, four long guns and 10 ghost guns. He also reported 65 criminal possession of weapon arraignments in Monroe County in July, with 13 people held without bail, 42 with cash or bail set (14 of those at $5,000 or less) and nine released with nonmonetary conditions.

"My opinion, my educated opinion and law enforcement opinion is that the ghost gun issue is in fact an issue that's going to get worse," Captain Murrah said, attributing the trend to advances in technology, 3-D printing and easier online access to firearm components. He added that some ghost guns are assembled from upper or lower components obtained online and in informal markets.

Coalition Chair and Council Member Willie Lightfoot told attendees the group has secured city approval to pursue a second gun-trace data report with Brady. "We are updating that agreement to allow us to move again on a second report," Lightfoot said, and expected the work to move faster now that data from the first study are available.

Discussion at the meeting stressed that ghost guns complicate tracing and law enforcement investigations. Captain Murrah described a range of ghost-gun types, from lower-technology single-shot designs to assembled firearms that can fire multiple rounds. Coalition members called for broader community education and noted the city, police department and coalition have used earlier trace work to shape local interventions.

No formal vote or ordinance was taken at the meeting. Coalition leaders said the second gun-trace report is proceeding as an interorganizational effort and will require a revised memorandum of agreement between the city and Brady before analysis begins.

The coalition also discussed a planned public forum in the fall that would bring city officials, the police department and coalition partners together to explain the local strategies and interventions informed by trace data and other metrics. Council Member Lightfoot said that planning for that event will be part of the coalition’s fall schedule.

The meeting segment with the RPD report and the ghost-gun discussion provides the most recent, speaker-attributed account of local firearm recoveries and law enforcement concerns; the numbers cited above were presented aloud by Captain Murrah during the August coalition meeting.