Jill Terreri and John Boccacino – Staff writers
Local News – January 25, 2010 - 5:00am
KRIS J. MURANTE staff photographer
A member of the Rochester Police Department’s crisis team crosses Genesee Street, which was shut down during an incident Sunday.
A husband and wife died in an apparent murder-suicide Sunday in southwest Rochester.
A man called police at 2:40 p.m. Sunday to say that he had shot his wife and that he was going to harm himself, police said. A negotiating team from the Rochester Police Department responded to 48 Stratford Park and spent hours trying to make contact with the man, without success.
When officers entered the home at about 6:30 p.m., they found the couple was dead.
“It is my understanding we did not make contact at all with the male individual,” said Police Chief David Moore, who was at the scene.
Moore said no one else was in the house during the incident. He characterized the situation as a domestic dispute and said he was not aware that the police had been called to the home in the past.
The man and woman, whose names were not released Sunday night, were found on the second floor of the single-family home.
Members of the community gathered along Genesee Street near St. Monica’s Church awaiting word on the incident, which took place during a driving rainstorm.
Loud cries could be heard from the crowd after police approached them with the news; some onlookers fell to their knees and started weeping while others held each other in hugs. They declined to comment on the incident, which lasted five hours and included members of the city’s crisis response team, emergency task force and negotiators.
Moore said police were in contact with the couple’s daughter and other relatives.
He said police responded to six other standoffs that turned into homicides last year.
“When we talk about human behavior, it’s very difficult to intervene with domestic violence if in fact that’s what happened here,” Moore said.
“All we can hope for is that someone in the family reaches out to the police or the authorities so that we can intervene before something gets to this point.”
Police shut down three blocks of Genesee Street and Stratford Park, a one-block street, during the incident.
Genesee Street was reopened around 7:45 p.m.
Errol Brown, who lives next door to the couple, said they were quiet and he couldn’t remember any past incidents when police were called to the home.
Brown, 55, said his relatives saw the woman Sunday morning.
“It’s so shocking,” said Brown, who was kept from his home for about five hours. “It’s so sad. Why? Why does it have to get to that point?”
JTERRERI@DemocratandChronicle.com
JBOCCACI@DemocratandChronicle.com
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