Rochester police report 58 shootings, 15 homicides year-to-date; coalition presses for gun-trace data after officer-involved shooting

At a recent meeting of the Rock Against Gun Violence Coalition, Rochester Police Department Captain Murrah provided an update on shootings, homicides and firearms seized this year and confirmed officers recovered additional guns during recent street operations.

The statistics presented to the coalition showed 58 shooting incidents with 65 victims to date and 15 homicides, with a median victim age of 27. For May, Murrah reported 37 handguns, 10 long guns and six ghost guns taken off the street; the department recorded 50 criminal possession of weapon arraignments in Monroe County during the month.

Councilman Willie Lightfoot, chairman of the Rock Against Gun Violence Coalition, and others pressed the department about where the recovered firearms are originating. Lightfoot said the community needs to know the sources of weapons recovered in Rochester: “Where are these guns coming from?”

Captain Murrah said investigations are ongoing and that data collection is still being compiled for some cases. He confirmed that one gun recovered in a recent arrest appeared to be a ghost gun: “Particular gun was a ghost gun.” He also said a recovered firearm tied to the officer-involved shooting has not been publicly described and that he could not release certain details while investigatory or charging processes were underway.

Murrah also updated pretrial outcomes for May arrests: eight individuals were held without bail, 39 had cash bail or bond set, 16 had cash bail set at $5,000 or less, and three were released with nonmonetary conditions. He noted additional demographic and case details would be circulated to coalition members in follow-up email materials.

Lightfoot and others emphasized that seizure counts alone do not answer the coalition’s central question about supply chains and trafficking: who is bringing guns into Rochester and how they are entering local circulation. Lightfoot said prior gun-trace work in the coalition’s reports has linked some guns used in violent incidents to out-of-area origins and urged that similar tracing be done for the recent recoveries.

The coalition did not take any formal votes on these items during the meeting. Members requested that police and data partners share trace results and confirmed they will follow the pending investigations and the second gun-trace report the coalition is preparing.

The discussion also noted an officer involved in the recent incident was injured but not shot and sustained a minor injury while taking a subject into custody. Murrah said police increased presence along Clinton Avenue following the weekend incidents and that violence-prevention staff recovered an additional handgun during outreach activity the same day.