Police in Rochester, N.Y., called for calm Sunday after a man acquitted in a 2015 triple homicide was shot and killed Saturday night.
Jalen Everett, 24, was shot while riding in a car northwest of downtown Rochester at approximately 8 p.m., and doctors pronounced him dead at a nearby hospital later that evening. Investigators have not determined a motive for the shooting and have not made any arrests as of Sunday evening.
Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary told reporters Sunday his officers had heard rumors of potential reprisals for Everett’s death during the course of their investigation and urged residents to “let the Rochester Police Department focus on its job.”
“We understand they are upset,” Singletary said. “They have a right to be upset. Our job is to focus on the task at hand.”
Everett was one of three men charged with connection with an Aug. 19, 2015 shooting, in which people in a car drove past a local Boys and Girls Club and opened fire on a crowd leaving a basketball game. Three people were killed and four others were wounded.
Jalen Everett was acquitted of taking part in a 2015 triple shooting outside a Boys and Girls Club in Rochester. (Rochester Police Department)
In November 2016, Everett was convicted of three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault and one count of second-degree assault in connection with the shooting, but that verdict was overturned when one of the jurors testified that another juror had spoken of evidence that was not introduced at Everett’s trial and made racist remarks around the other jurors.
Everett was acquitted in a second trial in January 2017.
Relatives and friends gathered to remember Everett at a vigil near the site of Saturday’s shooting.
“No matter how people felt about Jalen, no matter what his past, that was still someone’s son,” a cousin, Camille McIntyre, told Spectrum News Rochester. “Nobody deserves to be snatched out like this.”
McIntyre said Everett was a father of two boys, one a newborn.
A second suspect in the 2015 shooting, Johnny Blackshell Jr., was convicted and is serving life in prison. The third, Matthew Matthis, was acquitted.
