A 25-year-old Rochester man is facing attempted murder charges after police say he argued with another man outside a corner store, pulled a handgun and shot him multiple times before running off. Pierce Gardner evaded capture for weeks until a U.S. Marshals task force tracked him down on Otis Street.
According to rochesterfirst.com, the confrontation unfolded on Sept. 28 outside a store on Jay Street, where Gardner and the victim got into an argument. Police say Gardner then pulled out a handgun and shot the victim multiple times before fleeing the scene. The shooting happened near the intersection of Jay and Glide streets, close to the Quick Food Market, as reported by 13WHAM.
The victim, described as a man in his 30s, was rushed to Strong Memorial Hospital, where staff were able to stabilize him. His injuries were determined to be non-life-threatening, per the same account.
Weeks on the Run Before an Arrest on Otis Street
Investigators spent weeks working to identify and locate the shooter. Police say a U.S. Marshals task force ultimately found and took Gardner into custody on Otis Street this week, bringing an end to the search that followed the late-September shooting.
Gardner now faces second-degree attempted murder, second-degree assault and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon charges, the station's report notes. He was arraigned in Rochester City Court and is being held at the Monroe County Jail.
A Broader Backdrop of Falling Shootings, Stubborn Assaults
The Jay Street shooting arrived at a moment when Rochester's overall gun violence numbers have been trending downward. Through the first nine months of 2026, most categories of reported crime in the city were at record 15-year low levels, according to the Rochester Beacon. The city recorded 109 non-fatal shooting victims through the third quarter of the year, and eight firearm homicide victims — a figure tying 2011 for the lowest total at that point in the year since that date.
Still, the same report found that aggravated assaults, which are violent crimes with an intent to harm, remain at elevated levels even as other categories have improved. Rochester's gun-violence state of emergency, first instituted in 2022, has continued to be renewed on a monthly basis ever since.
Earlier in the year, a 365-day rolling total of reported shooting victims had fallen to 150 on May 11, the lowest point since December 2018, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. That compares with a peak of 426 shootings in a single year during 2021, at the height of the city's gun violence epidemic. At the time of that May report, 36 people had been shot in the city for the year, including one fatal shooting, representing a 16% drop in total shootings and an 82% decrease in homicides compared with the same point the previous year.
The Jay Street case is not the only recent shooting outside a Rochester corner store. On Oct. 14, police investigated a fatal shooting outside A-1 Food Mart on Webster Avenue in the city's Beechwood neighborhood, according to 13WHAM. That victim, 35-year-old Brandon Davis of Rochester, was shot multiple times after riding his bicycle into the store's parking lot and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they did not believe that shooting was a random act of violence, and no arrest had been made as of Oct. 15.
What Comes Next for Gardner
Gardner's attempted murder charge falls under a broader framework in New York law governing criminal attempts, which can carry serious felony classifications depending on the underlying offense, according to the New York State Senate. It remains unclear how Gardner's specific charges will be classified as his case moves through Rochester City Court, where he was arraigned before being sent to the Monroe County Jail.
