Buffalo residents express grief and outrage
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Disbelieving. Unsurprised. Fearful. Unafraid.
A day after a white gunman was suspected of traveling across New York state to massacre Black shoppers in what is being investigated as a racist hate crime, the community reeled Sunday from a mix of raw, sometimes contradictory, reactions.
At times the divide wasn’t just among neighbors struggling to process how to grieve a tragedy that occurred just a day earlier, but also within the hearts and minds of individuals as they sought in real time to turn their sorrow into statements.
Duane Noble, who grew up three blocks from the Tops Friendly Markets store where 11 Black people and two white people were shot Saturday, with 10 of them dying, described his initial reaction as “shocked.”
But he acknowledged what many Black, Latino and other Americans have feared when domestic terrorism unsettles a city that never thought it could be next, such as in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, Pittsburgh in 2018 and El Paso in 2019.
“I’ve actually thought that something’s going to happen in Buffalo,” said Noble, 61, a licensed optician. “I don’t know when. I don’t know how. I don’t know where. But something’s going to happen,” he recalled thinking, “and it did.”
A heavy law enforcement presence and yellow tape blocked access to the grocery store Sunday. Yet the community still showed up, with people lining the streets to feed others, hand out water, pray and commemorate the victims with flowers and candles.
Residents described the east Buffalo neighborhood as a largely segregated food desert with only one supermarket, whose temporary closing means that families will have to travel farther for basic needs.
“Why does the east side only have one supermarket?” asked Dwyane Jones, senior pastor of Mt. Aaron Baptist Church. “This guy knew where he could come and do the most damage. We should’ve provided better for the people.”
Jones, a developer and former law enforcement official, said blame for the attack ranges from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul all the way down to the Buffalo Common Council, and even himself.
“We, as leaders, have let the people down,” he said.
Some community members warned that misplaced hatred and anger could start a race war.
Njera Wilson, who grew up a few blocks from the market but now lives across town, was outside the grocery store Sunday talking to friends about the shooting and their plans for the coming days and weeks.
“We need a sit-down of our Black leaders … because we want to find a way to come together and to be alert to this type of thing,” said Wilson, 41. “Even though he’s not from here, he could start a war here.”
Other Black residents expressed deep fear for their own safety and that of their loved ones.
“Everybody in my house is on edge,” said Tyhirah Mims, a 19-year-old assistant teacher who held a black sign that read “Black Lives Matter!! I won’t rest!!” in white lettering. “I’m angry. I cried. It was a lot.”
Leslie Gardner, a 63-yearold woman who has lived in the majority-Black neighborhood around the Tops store her entire life, said that as an older Black resident, she sees the incident as the latest in a long string of white supremacist violence.
“There’s anger, which is natural, but people my age, we’ve seen it all,” Gardner said. “We’ve heard it from our parents and our grandparents that this is our legacy, our legacy of survival, our legacy of being abused and brutalized.”