‘Hero’ guard, shoppers are among victims

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Aaron Salter was a beloved community member and security guard who knew the shoppers of Tops Friendly Market by name. When they came under attack from a gunman with a rifle, he quickly sprung into action to protect his community.

The retired Buffalo police officer fired multiple times at the attacker, striking his armor-plated vest at least once. The bullet didn’t pierce, and Salter was shot and killed.

“He’s a true hero,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday. “There could have been more victims if not for his actions.”

Salter was one of 10 killed in an attack whose victims represented a cross-section of life in the predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y. They were gunned down by a white man who authorities say showed up at the store with the “express purpose” of killing Black people. Three others were wounded.

Salter “cared about the community. He looked after the store,” local resident Yvette Mack said. She remembered him as someone who “let us know if we was right or wrong.”

Mack would walk to the store to play lottery numbers and shop and said she spoke to Salter shortly before the shooting.

“I was playing my numbers. He said ‘I see your playing your numbers!’ I laughed. And he was playing his numbers too. Can you imagine seeing someone and you don’t know he’s not going to go home?”

The people Salter tried to protect include a man who was visiting relatives from out of town and was picking up a surprise birthday cake for his grandson.

“He never came out with the cake,” Clarissa Alston-McCutcheon said of her cousin. She said this sort of surprise was typical for him. He was “just a loving and caring guy. Loved family. Was always there for his family.”

Ruth Whitfield, the 86-year-old mother of retired Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield. She had just returned from visiting her husband at a nursing home, as she did every day, when she stopped in at Tops to buy a few groceries and was killed, Whitfield told The Buffalo News.

Ruth Whitfield was “a mother to the motherless” and “a blessing to all of us,” her son said. He attributed her strength and commitment to family to her strong religious faith.

“She inspired me to be a man of God, and to do whatever I do the best I could do. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her,” Whitfield said.

Also killed was shopper Katherine Massey, whose sister, Barbara Massey, called her “a beautiful soul.”