Current Rochester Police Chief David Moore and Mayor Robert Duffy, a former police chief, shared the superintendent's frustration.
Moore said that the case illustrates an urgent need to help the city's youth.
"If we can keep kids on track, then we won't be standing here, talking about arresting a young person for murder," he said
He also feels education has a lot to do with it.
“We've talked about the issue of how important this is for education and graduation rates. And just keeping a young person on track, so they have a sense of yes, you can achieve anything you would like,” he said
The city does have such programs like the Accelerated Reading Program at the Boys & Girls Club of Rochester, an after-school program aimed at helping kids improve their reading skills.
Marianne Harris of the Boys & Girls Club said, "It’s obviously the basis of all learning. If you can't read, you can't function in society, and you can't provide yourself with living and get a job.”
While Duffy acknowledges the importance and good work of those programs, he feels more needs to be done.
He said the shooting shows that money being invested in programs to help troubled juveniles is not going to the right places.
"When you look at cases of educational outcomes in our city, crime and some of the issues in crime and economics; we have a long ways to go," he said.
He would like to put more emphasis on after-school employment programs to give students direction and keep them out of trouble.
“We've had a couple of employment programs this year that we can't get enough jobs for these kids. These children want to work. They want to survive in this economy and there's no easy answers; there are so many things we can do,” he said.
