Grief counselors will be available Monday at a north side Rochester rec center frequented by a 14-year-old gunned down over the weekend.
Mayor Malik Evans has called the death of Zahnia Barr “an unspeakable tragedy,” while sharpening his criticism of the street gatherings and ensuing gun violence that also killed Shakara Green, 35, and left multiple others wounded.
“When you take over streets, and you mix alcohol and violence, and people’s personal beefs, this is what you get,” Evans said on Saturday. "This is what I have been saying to this community for the last couple weeks. It didn't hit hard because people were injured, and they had non life-threatening injuries. Now we are standing here, and somebody has died."
The shootings occurred as revelers took to the streets in northeast Rochester in the hours after the downtown Puerto Rican Festival. Police had swarmed the area, blocked streets, and Evans two weeks prior had banned overnight gatherings in public spaces, to no avail.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, City Council President Miguel Meléndez wrote that northeast neighborhood leaders would be calling a community meeting to discuss what can be done differently going forward.
“We must protect our children,” he wrote, “and we must acknowledge the fact that these impromptu parades and gatherings after dark are harmful to families in our community.”
Neither Barr nor Green were thought to have been targeted by their shooters, police said.
Barr, a student at Dr. Freddie Thomas Middle School, was shot in the upper body, and was among at least three people shot in the area late Friday into Saturday. Green was shot in the neck early Sunday, when someone leaned out the passenger side of a car and fired into a crowd. Five others were injured, according to police.
“This has nothing to do with extended rec center hours or kids needing something to do, this has nothing to do with that,” Evans said.
The other victims ranged in age from 18 to a man in his 40s, police said. Their injuries were not considered life- threatening.
“What we have seen in our community, and you are seeing it across the country, are people taking over streets, interrupting peoples’ neighborhoods and it resorting to violence,” Evans said, pointing to other gatherings that took place a week ago, over the July 4th weekend and back in June. “That is what our actions are about. Full stop.”
Evans also drew a distinction between people at the festival and those who promote and assemble for "the disruptions in the street that led to this innocent girl dying. And that is what we cannot tolerate in this community."
Meléndez and others from the northeast neighborhoods were walking the streets into the early hours of Sunday, working pre-emptively with police to head off any problems. Two hours before Green was shot and killed, he had posted:
“A long day out on Clinton but we had some success. ... It is my hope people get some sleep tonight, meaning, GO HOME! Be safe.”
