Witnesses describe scene of teen's stabbing

• Travone Teasley, 17, was stabbed to death June 20 on Genesee Street in Rochester.
• The RPD's Major Crimes Unit continues to work the investigation.

A neighborhood in southwest Rochester was reeling Saturday following the stabbing death of a 17-year-old boy Friday night.

Police and witnesses said Travone Teasley was stabbed during an altercation with a man on Genesee Street and fled west onto Kirkland Road, where he collapsed a block away at the intersection of Judson Street shortly before 10 p.m., leaving behind a trail of blood.

Rickie Sanders, 59, who lives at the intersection, described seeing a young man taunting the teenager as he lay dying before a woman came out of a house and wrapped her shirt around a wound in the teenager's neck.

"He was telling him, 'Get up! Get up! What you going to do? I'm not going to help you,'" Sanders recalled. "Then the lady came out and tied a shirt around his neck. She said he was bleeding from his neck and his ribcage, too."

Sanders said a crowd of people from Judson Street descended on the scene and broke down crying. "They were screaming and hollering, 'It's Booh Booh!'" Sanders said. "That's what they called him."

Capt. John Corbelli of the Rochester Police Department said officers initially responded to a call for a person shot in the area of Kirkland Road and Judson Street, off Genesee Street, about 10 p.m.

He said officers found Teasley unresponsive on the sidewalk with multiple wounds to his "upper torso," and that he was taken by ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Doctors later determined that Teasley's injuries were actually stab wounds and pronounced him dead at 10:47 p.m., Corbelli said.

The Major Crimes Unit was working the investigation Saturday. Police were checking surveillance cameras from nearby convenience stores for possible footage of the stabbing.

Word of the stabbing spread quickly through the neighborhood and many residents identified the assailant as a man in his late 20s or early 30s known to hang around a Jamaican restaurant on Genesee Street.

"Everybody knows who it is," said Fatieah Jones, a 20-year-old Syracuse University student who lives in the neighborhood and recalled going to school with Teasley at Franklin High School.

Jones wiped away tears as she discussed the death with a neighbor on Judson Street late Saturday morning. Like other residents, Jones said she knew Teasley as "Booh Booh" and that he was "a good kid" with a talent for rapping.

"He was a good, good boy," Jones said. "He was nice, he was loving, he did his work, he was just a good kid."

As she spoke, two young men with long faces and tired eyes approached. One of them hugged Jones and they walked on toward a new commotion down the street marked by shouting and thumping music from a car stereo.

From his porch at Kirkland and Judson, Sanders lamented the scene.

"There's always something going on around here," he said. "Fighting, whatever."

DANDREATTA@Gannett.com

GMCLENDN@Gannett.com