Buffalo victim’s son challenges Congress
‘My mother’s life mattered,’ he says in calling for action on gun violence and white supremacy.
WASHINGTON — The son of Ruth Whitfield, an 86year-old woman killed when a gunman opened fire in an attack on Black shoppers in Buffalo, N.Y., challenged Congress on Tuesday to act against the “cancer of white supremacy” and the nation’s epidemic of gun violence.
Garnell Whitfield Jr.’s emotional testimony comes as lawmakers are working to strike a bipartisan agreement on gun safety measures in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings. Ten days after the shooting killed 10 people in New York, another gunman with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 schoolchildren and two teachers.
“What are you doing? You were elected to protect us,” Whitfield told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Is there nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy and the domestic terrorism it inspires?” he asked. “If there is nothing, then, respectfully, senators … you should yield your positions of authority and influence to others that are willing to lead on this issue.”
The hearing is the first of two this week as families of the victims and survivors of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde appear at public hearings and events on Capitol Hill to show the human toll of America’s gun violence and urge Congress to act.
Pressing for a deal, President Biden met Tuesday with Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, a key Democratic negotiator, who has worked to pass gun control legislation since the slaughter of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his home state of Connecticut a decade ago.
Murphy told reporters after the meeting that he was grateful to have an opportunity to update the president on the talks in the Senate.
“Obviously we’ve still got work to do in the Senate,” he said.
Murphy said his goal is to try to get an agreement this week, but he added that Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) has been clear that “we need some extra time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee is expected to hear from more victims’ families and from fourth-grader Miah Cerrillo, who captured Americans’ attention after she described covering herself in her dead classmate’s blood and playing dead to survive the shooting rampage in Uvalde.
The Senate hearing Tuesday focused on the white supremacist ideology that authorities say led an 18-year-old gunman dressed in military gear to drive hours to a predominately Black neighborhood in Buffalo and livestream his violent rampage.
“My mother’s life mattered,” Whitfield said. “Your actions here will tell us if and how much it mattered to you.”
Shortly after the Buffalo massacre, a bill that would have bolstered federal resources to prevent domestic terrorism failed in the Senate at the hands of Republican opposition. Even at Tuesday’s hearing, Republican senators took the time to focus on the racial injustice protests that took place in summer 2020, citing those incidents as acts of domestic extremism.