As has happened for a number of years following the annual Puerto Rican Festival, Rochester Police were busy on the northeast side of the city dealing with large crowds blocking parts of the the main streets through that area.
Organizers of the festival have said this activity is not related to the event itself, and have tried to work with police and others to keep people from roaming through those neighborhoods after the festival closes for the weekend.
Police say that there were no arrests or problems at the festival site itself. But they say that as in past years, there were some issues with spontaneous parades and disorderly conduct in the northeast part of the city after the festival ended.
RPD says they handled the situation without any major incidents, and they dispersed the crowded mainly through verbal warnings, pepperball deployment and use of an ‘ LRAD ,’ a Long Range Accoustical Device which uses tones and loud messages,
Authorities say despite reports to the contrary, the did not utilize any military or military-style vehicles and RPD says it did not use its SWAT team for the activity.
Police say they made five arrests, three for disorderly conduct, and two traffic arrests. No Rochester officers were injured and no RPD equipment was damaged. The windshield of a fire truck was damaged by a thrown rock.
There were no injuries reported to civilians as part of the crowd issues. There were two stabbings involving non-life threatening injuries on Hudson Avenue, but it’s not known yet if either one was related to the crowds that happened in the northeast part of the city.
Offices say there was a small fire on Clifford Avenue, that was quickly extinguished by firefighters.
During the evening, there were reports on social media of people throwing rocks and bottles at police.
