Post Tribune (Sunday)

Victims remembered as Buffalo marks 1 week since shooting

- By Aaron Morrison

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Roberta Drury, a 32-year-old woman and the youngest of the 10 Black people killed at a Buffalo supermarke­t, was remembered at her funeral Saturday for “that smile that could light up a room,” as the city marked one week since the shooting with sorrowful moments of silence.

“Robbie,” as she was called, grew up in the Syracuse area and moved to Buffalo a decade ago to help her brother in his fight against leukemia. She was shot to death May 14 on a trip to buy groceries at the Tops Friendly Market targeted by a white gunman.

“There are no words to fully express the depth and breadth of this tragedy,” Friar Nicholas Spano, parochial vicar of Assumption Church, said during the funeral service in Syracuse, not far from where Drury grew up in Cicero.

Drury’s family wrote in her obituary that she “couldn’t walk a few steps without meeting a new friend.”

At the Tops store in Buffalo, the mood was a mixture of tension and somber reflection as the city marked one week since the racist massacre.

At 2:30 p.m., the moment the gunman opened fire, people who gathered and placed flowers near the corner where the victims have been memorializ­ed observed a moment of silence. A dozen workers stood in a line outside the store. Nearby, some mourners wept.

At the same time, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and other elected officials, along with Tops President John Persons, bowed their heads on the steps of City Hall for 123 seconds to mark the span of the attack. Houses of worship throughout the city were encouraged to ring their bells 13 times in honor of the 10 killed and three wounded.

Joshua Kellick, a mental health and substance abuse counselor in Buffalo, said victim Geraldine Talley, 62, was a friend. She worked as a secretary in his office, but she was the glue that held their work family together, he said outside the store.

“She was nothing but loving and giving . ... She was a mother, a grandmothe­r to everybody, without actually being just that,” said Kellick.

A candleligh­t vigil was planned for later in the evening.

 ?? SPENCER PLATT/GETTY ?? A cousin of Buffalo shooting victim Roberta Drury wears a shirt with her image as a baby.
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY A cousin of Buffalo shooting victim Roberta Drury wears a shirt with her image as a baby.

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