Recent shooting in buffalo6/23/2023 ![]() ![]() “If you can figure out how to get millions of dollars for a stadium, can’t you figure out how to get a supermarket,” Sharpton added, referring to a new $1.4 billion home turf planned for the Buffalo Bills that will be funded largely by taxpayers. “If there wasn’t but one supermarket in the Black community, he wouldn’t have gone to Tops,” Sharpton said at a prayer vigil held in Buffalo for the victims’ families on Thursday. Al Sharpton pointed to racial and socioeconomic inequality that made the Tops a target for the shooter, who officials say drove hundreds of miles to find Black people to gun down. The neighborhoods around the Tops market are predominantly Black and impoverished.Įarlier in the week, civil rights leader the Rev. “It would mean more if we could see, on Monday, that all those people with funds that came down to say how sorry they were could show it by investing in our area.”īuffalo, with a population of 255,000 that is 47% white, 35% Black, 12% Hispanic and 6% Asian, is one of the nation’s most racially segregated cities. “The only concern is that it’s not short lived,” Stover-Stitts said. Organizations from across the nation, and even a few global charities, offered food and other essential goods to residents who relied on Tops to meet their basic needs. “It’s been great to see the outpouring of support, I must say that,” said Jackie Stover-Stitts, co-owner of Golden Cup Coffee, about a block from the Tops on Jefferson Avenue.įor the past few days, the atmosphere around her shop had been festival-like and, at times, a somber space of mourning. Healing will require not only an immediate flood of charity, but also systemic solutions, economic investments and mental health counseling that are long lasting, they said. The attack has scraped off the scab hiding Black trauma and neglect that sit just below the surface in what’s called the City of Good Neighbors, residents, business owners and faith leaders said. Long before that 18-year-old avowed white supremacist inflicted terror in this community, Buffalo’s Black neighborhoods, like many others around the nation, had been dealing with wounds that are generations old. Mourners attend the funeral of Heyward Patterson in the wake of a weekend shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, U.S. Three others were injured in the attack, which federal authorities are investigating as a hate crime. Just over a week ago, a white gunman in body armor killed 10 Black shoppers and workers at the supermarket that has been temporarily closed. ![]() “We’re going to be winners if we endure to the end,” he said. Bell also encouraged his predominantly Black flock to lean into their faith. It’s a reality check,” Washington said.ĭuring Sunday service, Pastor Russell Bell of the State Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, where shooting victim Heyward Patterson was a deacon, promised his congregation that they would hold a celebration of his life. “He took away people who did for the community, just because of the color of their skin. The shooter, whose racist attack deeply wounded east Buffalo’s Black community, has stolen much more than the neighborhood’s only grocery store and the sense of peace many residents felt in the cherished community gathering spot. READ MORE: Funeral held for youngest victim in Buffalo mass shooting Sometimes when she would exit the store, Aaron Salter Jr., the slain retired police officer who worked security at Tops, would help Washington back to her car with the grocery orders, she said. Washington said she chose that spot to memorialize the victims of last weekend’s massacre at Tops Friendly Market because it is closest to the store entrance she had always used as a part-time worker for Instacart, the grocery delivery service. Next to it, they leaned 10 prayer candles against the pole. They dug a hole there and planted a red rose bush seedling. ![]() ![]() (AP) - Shenaya Ann Washington and a close friend cleared a small patch of grass at the base of a utility pole on Riley Street. ![]()
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