State authorities have been called in to investigate a murder-suicide involving a female law enforcement officer.
The officer, who has now been identified as 29-year-old Tiffani Gatson, a member of the Greece Police Department, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after shooting two other women Monday night at 25 Costar St., authorities said.
Rochester police responded at 7:20 p.m., and found 27-year-old Angely Solis dead at the scene. Gatson was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Strong Memorial Hospital.
A third woman, who is in her 30s, and has not been named yet, suffered what were described as non-life-threatening injuries from multiple gunshots to her upper body. She is expected to recover.
Police believe this was a domestic-related altercation. The shooting occurred outside Solis' residence. Gatson did not live there. It was unclear whether the other woman did.
Investigators recovered a 9mm handgun at the scene, authorities said. The gun was not Gatson's service weapon, and it was not immediately known who owned it.
Because of the officer's involvement, the New York State Attorney General’s Office was called to the scene and is conducting the investigation.
Greece Police Chief Michael Wood released a statement Tuesday expressing his department's "collective sorrow and grief," and said events of this nature "occur all too frequently" and that there is a "struggle to find answers in the aftermath."
Wood said that Gatson had been a Greece police officer since September 2018 and was recently assigned to the road patrol, working the 2 to 10 p.m. shift. She was off-duty when the shooting happened.
Wood added that the incident "is simply devastating, and so many people are hurting right now."
Gatson is a Rochester native and a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology. She was the first African American woman to join the Greece Police Department, and after her appointment, she was a guest on WXXI’s Connections with Evan Dawson, along with then-police Chief Patrick Phelan.
