Kelvin Vickers being escorted from court (WHAM screenshot) and Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz (Rochester Police Department)
A 22-year-old man in upstate New York will spend the rest of his days behind bars for killing one police officer and critically wounding another in an ambush attack as the two men were in an unmarked van conducting a stakeout.
Monroe County Court Judge Julie Hahn on Friday ordered Kelvin Vickers — who authorities said smiled and smirked throughout the legal proceedings — to serve a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for the 2022 slaying of Rochester Police Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz, authorities announced.
Following a four-week trial, a jury found Vickers guilty on all of the 26 charges filed against him, including one count of aggravated murder of a police officer, four counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, one count of attempted aggravated murder of a police officer, two counts of attempted second-degree murder.
The second law enforcement agent shot, Officer Sino Seng, survived his wounds. Vickers was also convicted of fatally shooting Richard Collinge and MyJel Rand in the days before he killed Mazurkiewicz.
Due to those multitude of violent convictions, Vickers was sentenced to several additional life sentences with the chance for parole, which Hahn ordered him to serve consecutively, meaning one after the other, in what was largely a symbolic gesture.
Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley addressed reporters after the hearing and lashed out at Vickers’ seemingly cavalier attitude during the legal proceedings.
“I kept looking back there. He smiled and had a smirk on during the sentencing — the same as he did during the course of the trial. He thought it was a joke,” Doorley said, per Rochester, New York, ABC affiliate WHAM. “It was just another day for him. No remorse. If you look back at the actions and evidence presented during the trial, this was a cold-blooded killer. He clearly had no concern for human life and if he was released tomorrow, I would probably (guess) that he would kill again.”
According to a news release from the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, the shooting of the officers capped off a violent multiday series of events in the Rochester area beginning on the night of July 19, 2022, when officers responded to an area near North Clinton Avenue and Rauber Street in connection with reports about multiple houses and vehicles being struck with gunfire.
Several hours later, at about 12:30 a.m. on July 20, officers responded to the same area where they found Collinge and Rand fatally wounded and another man, Tireek Burden, who had been shot but survived the injuries.
A few hours after the shooting, authorities responded to a fire on nearby Weyl Street where they found a car “engulfed in flames, which began to spread to a nearby house.” Vickers was convicted of arson in connection with the fire.
On the night of July 21, police decided put Officers Mazurkiewicz and Seng undercover in an unmarked van to surveil the area. However, Vickers was reportedly able to figure out that the two men were law enforcement.
“After driving by Laser Street multiple times, Kelvin Vickers was watching the van. The officers parked on Bauman Street, when Kelvin Vickers discreetly exited the porch on 55 Laser Street, ambushed and shot multiple rounds at Officer Mazurkiewicz and Officer Seng,” prosecutors wrote in the release.
Several law enforcement agencies immediately responded to the scene and both men were rushed to nearby hospitals. Seng recovered following treatment at Rochester General Hospital. Mazurkiewicz succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead at Strong Memorial Hospital.
Vickers was arrested a short while later and authorities said that the firearm used in the shootings had Vickers’ DNA on it.
“All of these lives were forever changed by Kelvin Vickers, a man who left a path of destruction and violence in his wake,” Doorley said in a statement following the sentencing hearing. “Today marks the conclusion of a heart wrenching chapter for the Rochester Police Department and our entire community. This sentence was the only appropriate resolution for this man who killed three people and shattered an entire community.”
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