Violence early Saturday morning on North Clinton Avenue in Rochester forced the cancellation of the Puerto Rican Festival parade, but the festival went on as scheduled through Saturday evening.
Parade organizers said in a Facebook post, “Due to safety reasons, the Parade is cancelled. We are very, very disappointed. It breaks our heart to have this happen.”
That was after five people were shot, one fatally, in the area, according to Rochester police. Another person suffered life-threatening wounds.
The parade on North Clinton would have been the first time in 27 years the parade had returned to that avenue, which historically has been a center for local Puerto Rican and Latin culture.
Yolanda Culver, the president of the parade, said on Friday that Puerto Rican people and many other Latinos have called that neighborhood home for many years.
“Due to the generations of Hispanics that still remain living in those neighborhoods, their kids and now their kids’ grandkids are all still part of those neighborhoods,” Culver said.
On Saturday, Culver said, "Next year, we do plan to continue the festival and the parade, and we're going to see if we can do our route once again here on Clinton Avenue and be more proactive." She added, "We'll have to speak in conjunction with the city and see how we can collaborate and assist because we want to bring this back to Clinton Avenue. This is the home of the parade."
The Puerto Rican Festival, which began Thursday and runs through Saturday, is the 53rd annual celebration for the festival, which Festival President Orlando Ortiz said is the longest-running ethnic festival in Monroe County.
Ortiz noted that the festival has always attracted people from a variety of Latin countries as well as from Puerto Rico.
“So we've had Venezuelans, Panamanians, Cubans,” Ortiz said, adding that it’s “been very great to see, at least for me, fulfilling, to see all those other flags being represented at the Puerto Rican festival. Because, again, we're the Puerto Rican festival, but we want to make sure that others feel that this is their event, as well.”
In a statement issued on Saturday, Ortiz said that “The first two days of the festival have been truly amazing. Seeing our community enjoying themselves and children waving their Puerto Rican flags is all worth it. We invite the entire Rochester community to rally behind us and not allow external factors dictate how and when we can celebrate our rich culture.”
The Puerto Rico festival took place at Innovative Field and went on as scheduled through Saturday night.
