rochester police department

Rochester Police are releasing more details about one of the worst mass shootings in the city’s history.

It happened early Saturday morning after a party outside a house in the 200 block of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Two young people died at the scene, and 14 others were wounded.

The people who died have been identified as Jaquayla Young, who graduated last year from East High School, and Jarvis Alexander, who graduated last year from UPrep, a charter school in the city. Both were 19 years old.

The Rochester City Council voted Tuesday to rescind its approval of funding for a new $16 million police station on East Main Street in the Beechwood neighborhood.

Council President Loretta Scott and council members Mitch Gruber and Mary Lupien on Friday introduced legislation to repeal $12.6 million in bonds approved for the project last month. The legislation, which passed 7-1, also severs all professional agreements to build the station.

The sole vote against pulling the funding came from Council member Jose Peo, who last month voted against the bonding measure.

Members of the Police Accountability Board on Tuesday called on city officials to include them in ongoing investigations following the death of Daniel Prude after he was restrained and suffocated while in custody. He died a week later.

The civilian-run board, which was established to investigate police misconduct, has been excluded from deliberations over the Rochester Police Department, board chair Shani Wilson said. She said that undermines the point of having an accountability board.

Mayor Lovely Warren has fired Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary, effective immediately, and suspended her top communications aide and the city’s attorney for 30 days without pay.

During a news conference Monday, the mayor said she took the personnel actions after receiving a report from Deputy Mayor James Smith, whom she instructed to perform an “internal management review of the mental hygiene arrest and subsequent death of Daniel Prude to determine who knew what and when.”

Rochester City Council is taking some steps this week to continue with its review of what happened in the death of Daniel Prude. 

Council is holding a listening session for Rochesterians who want to talk about about recent events, including the death of Prude, reimagining public safety and the resulting protests. Prude died last March, a week after police restrained him on the pavement. He suffocated and died a week later. His death was ruled a homicide.

Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary announced his resignation Tuesday, and several of his department's highest-ranking officials either stepped down or were demoted in what was the starkest political fallout yet from the news of the death of Daniel Prude.

The departures included the chief, one of his deputies, and two commanders, as well as the demotions of two other deputy chiefs and another commander, and came three days after the state attorney general announced that she would impanel a grand jury to consider evidence in Prude's death.

News of the death of Daniel Prude following his arrest by Rochester police moved upwards of 100 demonstrators to gather Wednesday at the Jefferson Avenue intersection where Prude was restrained by officers.

The demonstrators began their protest outside the Rochester Police Department headquarters on Exchange Boulevard early in the afternoon, shortly after relatives of Prude and a lawyer representing them released the details of his death during a news conference at City Hall.