Fourth of July violence obscures progress on crime

A violent Fourth of July weekend overshadowed what otherwise has been a remarkable decline in reported crime in Rochester.

About two hours after the city’s fireworks display ended, a massive fight broke out near Parcel 5. The Rochester Police Department says over 50 shots were fired, wounding seven people, and another person was stabbed.

No one was killed in the chaos, a fact that RPD Chief David Smith credited to a quick emergency response that was able to apply tourniquets to wounded individuals.

“Our officers performed heroically Saturday night,” Smith said during a news conference about the incident. “Had it not been for the extra resources we had, it potentially could have been far worse.”

Three arrests were made by RPD. Investigators are still seeking information about the incident from eyewitnesses.

“As a result (of the RPD’s actions), I’m standing here not saying that we have any deaths, that we don’t have any homicides,” said Mayor Malik Evans. “But what we did have is mayhem. Mayhem that is extremely unacceptable.

“Sadly, we were not alone,” he added, mentioning other cities with Independence Day violence including Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Boston, Chicago and Dayton. “All the articles say, ‘Well, you know, it’s the Fourth of July. This happens on the Fourth of July.’ I want to say no, this should not happen on the Fourth of July. It shouldn’t happen in Rochester and it should not happen anywhere else.”

In fact, this year’s violence broke with recent history. Although 2023 had six shooting incidents recorded in a single night, Independence Day in 2024 and 2025 were both violence-free celebrations. 

The Fourth of July violence this year came after another three-month period of declining crime incidents in the city. Midyear data continues the trend seen in the first quarter, particularly in firearms crimes.

“We have made great progress in terms of shootings in our community,” Evans said. “We’ve had a great last couple of years from a numerical perspective. But even when one person is shot, it still has an effect on the broader community.”

Homicides at a record low

In the first six months of 2026, Rochester had five homicides—the fewest at this point in the year for all of RPD’s publicly available records, which stretch back to 2011. Only one this year has been by firearm, also the lowest number ever.

The number of firearm victims overall mirrors this trend, with midyear stats appearing like a side of a pyramid leading downward to 2026 from its apex in 2021 and 2022. While the exact reasons for this decline are still being studied, the surge in shootings and gun homicides occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 57 non-fatal shooting victims so far this year are the same as the pre-COVID year of 2018.

Starting in 2022, Evans has instituted and renewed a gun violence state of emergency on a monthly basis.

“Often people say, ‘Why do you keep the gun violence emergency?’ What you saw last night is a reason why we continue to do that,” Evans said on July 5. “Because for every gun that we take off the street is one less person that thinks that they can walk around carrying an illegal firearm or someone else that’s thinking about what they can do to escalate a dispute or ‘get even.’”

The measure allows Evans to mobilize services from a variety of city agencies with only mayoral authorization, regulate traffic, establish curfews, control pedestrian movement, and close places of amusement or individual businesses.

Violent crime incidents—homicides, aggravated assaults, and robberies—remain around the same level as the previous year. Midway through 2025, there were 547 reported crimes in those categories. This year, there were 553.

These incidents continue to be concentrated in the North Clinton and Upper Falls neighborhoods, areas historically marked by proportionally higher levels of violence. These areas are also marked by higher numbers of firearm-related crimes compared with the rest of the city, even as those incidents have decreased overall.

The RPD patrol beat covering the eastern half of Center City has also been a high-incidence area for violent crime this year. The area includes heavily trafficked areas like the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park and the RTS Transit Center.

Curbing illegal firearms

Along with the gun violence state of emergency, studies on the flow of guns used in crimes have also been a strategy for Rochester.

The firearm advocacy group Brady first released a Gun Trace Data Report in 2023 through a partnership with the Roc Against Gun Violence Coalition, an initiative led by then City Councilmember Willie Lightfoot. It released a follow-up to that report earlier this year.

The original report attempted to trace guns used in crimes to the store where they were originally sold. However, the report also noted a large proportion of “ghost guns,” unserialized firearms built through kits that can be ordered online. 

The updated report found that following a 2022 law criminalizing the sale and possession of ghost guns, the number of such firearms on the street dropped. Ghost-gun manufacturer Polymer80 has since gone out of business, and the presence of its weapons in Rochester has dramatically decreased.

Evans said, however, that ghost guns are still a problem in the city, noting that one of the recovered guns from the July 4 melee fell into that category.

The 2026 report also found that 34% of recovered crime guns originated in-state, compared with 43% in the previous study. Still, Evans placed pressure on gun stores outside the city, but within Monroe County, at a press conference announcing the report.

“I find it troubling that some of our own neighbors and business owners from the suburbs of Rochester are supplying a significant number of illegal guns that end up in our city and (are) used in a crime,” he said.

Brenden Lewis, the owner of The Firing Pin, a gun shop in nearby Bergen, says he was “disheartened but not surprised” by Evans’ comments and released a public statement in response to the report.

“There are mountains of regulations, both state and federal, that we all follow,” Lewis said. “Then there’s the moral issue. We gun dealers understand that there are moral and ethical liabilities with these firearms. There’s no one that respects these tools and advocates for the public to respect them more than us.

“To insinuate that dealers in the suburbs are intentionally supplying this pipeline with ‘illegal guns’ is frankly insulting,“ he added. “We are not your enemy in this fight against violence. We want to be a part of the solution. Give the industry a seat at the table so that we can all work together to prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands.”

The most likely victim of a gun crime in Rochester is still male (72%) and Black (74%). The midyear crime statistics indicate that those aged 25 to 44 are the most likely (44%) to be at risk.

Smith confirmed that a majority of the Fourth of July victims were youths. The mayor is considering a curfew for young people. 

“We cannot have instances of minors being unaccompanied and their parents are nowhere to be found,” Evans said. “This (Fourth of July) was exhibit A of why something like this has to be explored. It has to be explored in the legal context to make sure that, No. 1, it sticks; No. 2, it’s effective; and No. 3, that it’s just not an empty promise.”

The city had a youth-based curfew from 2006 to 2009, which the Court of Appeals ruled unconstitutional in its final year. Evans says the city’s legal team is examining the feasibility of instituting one now.

A quasi-curfew model was rolled out in 2024 under the gun violence state of emergency for the East End entertainment district. It created a special zone within the area, barring people under 21 and closing the area’s roads on Saturday nights. Similar to the gun violence state of emergency, the zone has been continually renewed and remains in place.

Property crime decline

The number of motor vehicle thefts continues to fall, albeit more slowly than firearm crime. After spiking to 2,375 in the first half of 2023, it has dropped every year since. There were 551 reported property crimes in the first six months of 2026.

The sudden rise in motor vehicle thefts in 2023 prompted Rochester to join a lawsuit targeting Kia America and Hyundai Motor America alleging negligent security measures and failure to install proper anti-theft technology.

Last year, state Attorney General Letitia James announced a $9 million settlement with those companies, with $4.5 million going to consumers whose cars were recently stolen or damaged, and an additional $4.5 million in penalties to all states involved in the litigation.

Car theft victims can receive up to $4,500 for a total loss or up to $2,250 for partial loss, as well as $375 for a qualified theft attempt. A zinc-reinforced ignition cylinder, an additional security measure, can be installed at no cost at authorized Hyundai or Kia dealerships. Customers have until March 21, 2027, to submit a claim in this case. 

Reported car-related thefts are prevalent in the East End District, a locus of Rochester’s nightlife.

The other property crime categories have also declined this year compared to midyear totals over the last decade. Larcenies, typically the most commonly reported crime, fell slightly from 1,727 in 2025 to 1,630 this year. This follows an uptick of reports in 2022 and 2023, which was, in part, related to the spike in motor vehicle thefts.

The single address with the most reports was the Hudson Avenue Walmart superstore, which accounted for 4.5% of all larcenies. Multiple addresses that cover Strong Memorial Hospital made up 5.7% of the total, and the University of Rochester was another hotspot at 2.6%.

The number of burglaries has also dropped. There have been 194 so far this year, compared with 291 in the same period a year ago.

The decline in crime overall comes even as RPD often cites a shortage of 120 staff. The department has expanded its recruitment efforts with new tactics this year, expanding its candidate pool to accept recruits as old as 42 and promoting the military’s SkillBridge program, which helps active-duty servicemembers transition to the civilian workforce. RPD believes it is the only department in New York participating in SkillBridge.

The RPD internship currently posted on the website accepts individuals from all service branches, has a training range of one to 30 days and a duration of 120 days.

 Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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