Police probe Ninth Street shooting that killed one and left three injured

Falls Police detectives returned to Ninth Street Friday afternoon, armed with search warrants, after an early morning shooting there left a man dead and three other people wounded.

Sources said investigators were looking for security cameras attached to two apartment buildings across the street from the shooting scene. Detectives are hoping the cameras may have caught images of the shooting incident.

Just after 1 a.m., Falls Police patrol officers responded to the 400 block of Ninth Street for a report of “shots fired.” Witnesses said they heard what sounded like “automatic weapons fire.”

When officers arrived at the scene, they found a four-door car with the rear portion of the vehicle up over the curb and backed into a vacant lot. Five bullet holes were visible in the front passenger-side window of the car.

The officers found Donald Rodgers Jr., 30, of the Falls, inside the vehicle, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. Rodgers was immediately rushed to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

To other men, suffering from gunshot wounds were transported to NFMMC by private vehicles. They were treated for what were described as non-life-threatening wounds.

A woman, described as a passenger in the car that was hit by the hail of gunfire, suffered multiple lacerations from shattered glass in the vehicle. Her injuries were also described as non-life-threatening.

Crime Scene Unit detectives recovered 20 spent shell casings around the shooting scene. Criminal Investigation Division detectives spent the day Friday looking to identify the shooter or shooters involved in the incident.

They reportedly were making “slow progress” and issued a call for help from the public.

Rodgers, who sources described as a “street-gang member and drug dealer” was well known to Falls police, in particular Narcotics & Intelligence Division detectives.

In May 2021, Rodgers was charged with second-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle, fourth-degree criminal mischief and 12 vehicle and traffic citations as a result of an encounter with NID detectives. Rodgers was in a car with two passengers in the 2200 block of Whitney Avenue and narcotics detectives said they watched as the vehicle pulled to a stop.

Acting on information they said they had that there may have been guns and drugs in the vehicle, the narcotics detectives approached it.

Rodgers reportedly saw the detectives approaching and he and the passengers began to roll up the open windows of the vehicle, trapping one detective’s hands in the car. As Rodgers started to drive away, the detective was forced to run alongside the vehicle until he was able to free himself.

The detective was not seriously injured.

Rodgers’ car was located later that day unoccupied and behind a home on Greenview Terrace in the Center Court neighborhood.

Several days later, NID detectives and members of the U.S. Marshals Violent Felony Fugitive Task Force found Rodgers in another car in the 600 block of Elmwood Avenue. The investigators said they were able to surround the vehicle and take Rodgers into custody.

Inside the car, detectives recovered a loaded .45-caliber Taurus handgun, six grams of suspected cocaine, 20 Hydrocodone pills and more than $1,300 cash.

That led to Rodgers being charged with second- and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and multiple drug possession charges.

He had been released on bail and those charges were still pending prior to his death early Friday morning.

Rodgers is the city’s eighth homicide victim of 2022.