Bells ring for victims of Buffalo supermarket mass shooting a year after racist massacre

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BUFFALO, NY – The city of Buffalo will pause Sunday to mark one year since a gunman killed 10 people and injured three others in a racist attack that targeted black people at a city supermarket .

A minute of silence followed by the chime of church bells at 2.28pm will honor the victims of the massacre at Tops Friendly Market on May 14, 2022.

“The racially motivated mass shooting shook our community to the core. It was the day the unthinkable happened,” Mayor Byron Brown said as he announced plans for the commemoration, which will be held in the supermarket now. reopened.

Earlier in the week, panelists discussed ways to combat racism and social media radicalization and residents were asked to reflect at an outdoor community gathering.

In the year since the shooting, relatives of the victims have spoken to Congress about white supremacy and gun reform and held events to address food insecurity that worsened when the market, the only grocery store in the neighborhood, was inaccessible for two months.

President Joe Biden paid tribute to the lives of those killed in Buffalo in an op-ed published Sunday in USA Today. He called on Congress and state legislative leaders to act by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales and repealing immunity from liability. gun manufacturers. His administration passed a historic gun measure in June following a series of mass shootings.

New York State law already prohibits the possession of magazines containing more than 10 rounds.

Gun control organizations and advocates, including Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, held nearly 200 events across the country over the weekend, calling on Congress to restore a bipartisan gun ban. assault.

In Buffalo, Wayne Jones, whose mother Celestine Chaney, 65, died in the attack, urged the city and its institutions to continue investing in the region and its people even after the anniversary events are over.

That’s why he’s ready, he says, “to keep reopening this wound that I have” and talking about it.

The 63-year-old son of shooting victim Geraldine Talley released a book on Sunday that he says describes what he went through after losing his mother. He titled it, “5/14: The Day the Devil Came to Buffalo.”

“I really know she wouldn’t want me to be consumed by sadness and anger,” Talley said of her mother, speaking outside the store as the anniversary approached, ” so I will definitely try to find strength in his memory and use to fight injustice and racism for the rest of my life on his behalf.”

Bison shooting: 10 killed, 3 injured at the supermarket 9 photos

Inside the revamped store, fountains frame a poem dedicated to the victims. A commission is working on the design of a permanent memorial for the exterior.

Meanwhile, a hand-painted mural overlooking the parking lot promotes unity, with a black hand and a white hand meeting in prayer.

The 18-year-old white supremacist carried out the attack after traveling more than 200 miles from his home in rural Conklin, New York.

Besides Chaney and Talley, the dead included André Mackneil, who was buying a cake for his son’s third birthday; church deacon Heyward Patterson; community advocate Katherine Massey; Ruth Whitfield, whose son was a Buffalo fire marshal; Roberta Drury, who had returned to Buffalo to help a brother with cancer; church missionary Pearl Young; Margus Morrison, buying dinner for family movie night; and Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo police officer who worked as a security guard.

The shooter pleaded guilty to murder and other charges and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in February. A federal case against him is pending.

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