A year after Buffalo supermarket massacre, city's Black youth shaken

BUFFALO, N.Y. >> It's hard for Jamari Shaw, 16, to have fun at the park with his younger brothers in their East Buffalo neighborhood. He's too busy scanning for danger, an aftereffect of a gunman's attack that killed 10 Black people at a local grocery store.

Sometimes, 17-year-old Alanna Littleton stays in the car when her family drives to that supermarket from their home just down the street.

“It's such a level of tension,” Alanna said.

As the city on Sunday marks one year since the racist massacre, many young Black people in Buffalo are grappling with a shaken sense of personal security and complicated feelings about how their community was targeted.

While the white supremacist got life in prison for the killings, others face a lifetime of healing.

“I'm definitely gonna carry this with me,” Jamari said after school last week.

On May 14, 2022, an 18-year-old emerged from his car and began shooting people at the Tops Family Market, with the stated goal of killing as many Black people as possible. He wore body armor and livestreamed as he fired on shoppers and workers, killing 10 and wounding three more.

The killer from Conklin, New York, a small town about 200 miles from Buffalo, wrote online that his motivation was preserving white power in the U.S., and he chose to target Buffalo's East Side because it had a large percentage of Black residents.

Since the mass shooting, Jamari notices emptier basketball courts in his neighborhood. People seem to stay inside more. He feels a hesitancy to drop into Tops now to get water or Gatorade before sports practice like he used to — a gnawing feeling of danger anywhere, from anyone.

“The fact that he (the shooter) wasn't that much older, it's really taken a toll,” said Jamari, who feels especially protective of his four siblings, the youngest of whom is 5. “You get to thinking, `Who's going to do what?' It could be your best friend. You just never know.”

It's on 17-year-old Abijah Johnson's mind when he walks near the store.

JEFFREY T. BARNES — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Jamari Shaw, 16, poses for a portrait in his East side neighborhood May 11in Buffalo, N.Y. Shaw is one of many young people who are still nervous in their surroundings since last years racist mass shooting at Tops Market.