Rochester city officials are calling for calm, following a recent spike in violent crime.  

The latest incident involved the death of a man, who one of three people shot early Sunday in northeast Rochester.

Meanwhile, Mayor Lovely Warren Monday defended a decision to allow a large vigil honoring the victim Sunday, at the scene on Clifford Avenue.

“We believe that allowing the communities to come together to mourn was safer for our people concerned,” said Warren, who said she drove by the assembled group. “Because of the fact that we knew that there was heightened emotions, people had just lost a loved one and a friend.”

Photos and videos of the vigil, posted to social media, showed a large gathering with many in attendance not practicing social distancing guidelines. Warren said people mourned “safely.”

The Clifford Ave. shooting was the latest in a recent uptick in deadly shootings and other violent incidents.  

Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary says he’s added patrols in troubled areas, while targeting known gun offenders. Rochester police have confiscated 26 illegal guns in the past month, resulting in 28 arrests. Singletary says police are seeing more people committing gun crimes.

“We’re seeing individuals who are carrying guns,” he said. “I don't know if they feel that they can carry guns freely and they think that we're not out there, enforcing the laws. But we are.”

Warren, meanwhile, issued an impassioned plea to stop the violence, requesting folks step back and consider what’s important, before they act. She also noted that trips to the hospital for gunshot and stab wounds take resources away from treatment of coronavirus patients.

“We can make different choices,” she said. “I’m asking you, because the fact of the matter is when you go to the hospital from a gunshot wound, you're taking away a doctor, nurses, other people from dealing with the coronavirus.”

Singletary made a similar plea for calm.

“What we’re urging the public to do is kind of just relax,” he said. “For the moment, right, relax, put the weapons down.”