3-year-old’s condition improves, 2 adults hurt in Rochester shooting

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — A 3-year-old had life-threatening injuries but has since improved, and two adults are injured after a shooting on Glendale Park at the corner of Fulton Avenue Thursday afternoon.

Rochester Police were called to the location just after 1:30 p.m. RPD says this may have been a domestic issue. In addition to the child, a man and woman, both in their 20s, were shot. The adults have non-life-threatening injuries.

All were transported to Strong Memorial Hospital. The child was said to have non-life-threatening injuries in the RPD’s initial release, but the young kid’s condition worsened shortly after, only to improve and be upgraded to non-life-threatening condition at around 5:45 p.m.

Officers are still looking for a suspect but said it could be possible that the shooter may have been injured in the incident. Multiples shots were fired from a handgun during the incident, police say.

Police say right now, they are not releasing any more information about the 3-year-old. Several other children were removed from the home and placed with friends or relatives.

“There were other children in the house at the time," Lt. Greg Bello said. "There were quite a few people in the house at the time. So only… Only… The three were shot, I will, thankfully the other people who are in the house at the time. There’s various ages of children in the house, and we are looking at getting them into a safe place, into a different place for now.”

None of the other children in the house were injured.

Investigators have gone door to door looking for possible witnesses.

According to the recent Gun-Involved Violence Elimination report, shootings involving injuries were up more than 100% in Rochester last year compared to the five-year average.

Last year at this time, there had been five shootings involving injuries. This year there have been at least nine and the Rochester Police Department Data Portal only has shootings through Jan. 10 as of Thursday night.

Mayor Malik Evans released the following statement on the incident:

"Several of the violent-crime statutes in the New York penal code include the phrase ‘depraved indifference for human life.’ I cannot think of a more appropriate way to describe today’s shooting of a 3-year-old child. This was not an accident. This was not bad luck or misfortune. This was a selfish act by a person with no regard for anything or anyone but his own ego, and now this child is fighting for their life in a hospital.

"My heart is broken for this child and their family. People need to learn to control their anger, settle their disputes with restraint, and value human life."