A marijuana smuggling ring broken up by Rochester police is tied to the murder of Rochester Police Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz and two other men over the summer. It brought out-of-town gang members, weapons and marijuana into Rochester.
According to police and a federal indictment, Kelvin Vickers, accused of the murder of officer Mazurkiewicz, was brought from Boston to Rochester to guard against a rival gang. He’s accused of shooting and killing Richard Collinge Jr and MyJel Rand as well as the officer.
Vickers and four others now stand accused of a series of shootings, arsons against rival drug dealers and drug sales pas part of a large-scale drug network that police say drove Rochester’s violent summer. It was headed by Brandon Washington and brought down by a police operation which ran from June 14th until this week. Police say they served 18 search warrants and recovered large amounts of marijuana.
Captain Frank Umbrino said the gang caused most of the violence in the city within 24-to-48 hours on July 21st. He said “more people were going to get shot, more people were going to die, more houses were going to burn.”
Eighteen people were arrested as part of the investigation, 22 guns were seized along with 139 pounds of marijuana.