Rochester Police Chief Jim Sheppard is releasing some more information about an incident on the northeast side on Thursday where one of his officers was among three people wounded in an exchange of gunfire.
It happened on North Goodman near Yates Street in the late afternoon. Police had stopped a vehicle driven by 31 year old Ralph Strong of the city, a suspect in a double homicide that happened outside a nightclub on Central Avenue on Monday. Sheppard says when Strong got out of the car there was an exchange of gunfire. Sargent Flamur Zenelovic was shot multiple times in the upper body.
Zenelovic was taken to Rochester General, and he is expected to recover. Three other officers returned fire, and Strong was wounded and taken to the hospital but his condition was not immediately available. And a Henrietta man who was driving by, 45 year old Gene McDougal, was struck by gunfire in the lower body and he was also being treated at the hospital.
Sheppard says being a police officer is an inherently dangerous job.
"Every member of the Rochester Police Department, anybody in law enforcement who puts on a uniform, anyone who wears a badge, the potential for being involved in this type of circumstance, is always with us," Sheppard told reporters. "
The area where the shooting happened, in the area of North Goodman and Norton Streets, was closed to traffic for several hours because of the investigation.
