Good Morning, Buffalo: Police barricades are gone from Jefferson Avenue Tops, but grief, sadness and memorials remain | | buffalonews.com

2022-05-21 16:51:43 By : Mr. Steven Song

Get local news delivered to your inbox!

Once the crime tape was removed around Tops, the community on Thursday was able to approach a memorial with the names and photos of each of the victims killed in the shooting on Saturday.

The police barricades and yellow crime scene tape that surrounded the Jefferson Avenue Tops Markets came down Thursday evening, marking an end to one part of the investigation into a mass shooting that claimed 10 lives and wounded three others.

What remains is grief, sadness and memorials to the dead.

"It's so hurtful to see something like this, to know that this could have been any one of us on any day of the week in this community, in this grocery store," Janae Baker said of the effects of the crime that authorities called "pure evil" committed by a white supremacist.

Baker, accompanied by a friend and their infants, gazed Friday at one of the memorials set around a tree on Landon Street across from the supermarket.

Some community activists said six days after the mass shooting was too soon to take down the barriers, but others said removing them won’t affect their grief or their efforts to make sure those who died are remembered.

– Harold McNeil and Janet Gramza

[More: Mayor Byron Brown calls for 123 seconds of silence today]

'My parents know something’s wrong': But accused Tops killer lied to fool them: The 18-year-old gunman accused of slaying 10 people in a racist mass shooting last weekend feared that his parents, Paul and Pamela Gendron, came close to discovering his well-hidden plot on at least a half-dozen occasions, according to more than 600 pages of online messages reviewed by The Buffalo News. Read more

[Related: Cat decapitation should have prompted risk exam of Tops gunman, says animal abuse expert]

ECMC staffers were prepared to save lives Saturday. In most cases, they didn't get the chance: The three people wounded last Saturday in the mass shooting at Tops arrived at ECMC within 15 minutes. Doctors, nurses and staff at the hospital wish they would have had the opportunity to save more of the victims. Read more

Aaron Salter Jr. to receive bachelor's degree posthumously from Canisius College: The retired Buffalo police officer and Tops security guard who was killed in last Saturday's shooting will receive posthumously a Bachelor of Arts degree from Canisius College. The diploma will be accepted by Salter's son during today’s undergraduate ceremonies. Read more

Assemblyman Patrick Burke fires three top staffers in exchange over his response to Tops shooting: Burke, an Orchard Park Democrat, said he fired them for “gross insubordination” following a heated exchange Tuesday afternoon in his West Seneca district office during which he said they accused him of being a “political coward.” Read more

Jacobs to run in Southern Tier, Tenney in Niagara County under new congressional map: The court-appointed "special master" who's been redrawing the state's congressional map released its final version late Friday. And after the clock struck midnight, Rep. Chris Jacobs, an Orchard Park Republican, announced he would run in the map's new Southern Tier seat while Rep. Claudia Tenney, a Utica-area Republican, said she would run in the new 24th District to the north. In other words, Jacobs and Tenney flipped their political plans. Read more

Buffalo Common Council slashes $2 million from Brown's proposed budget: ShotSpotters are out. So are increases to user fees. And property tax hikes are lower than originally proposed. The Buffalo Common Council also slashed pay raises and eliminated some vacant positions when it unanimously approved Friday a $568 million budget for the city for the 2022-23 fiscal year. Read more

Sheriff fires recently indicted Erie County jail sergeant: A grand jury in April indicted a longtime jail sergeant on charges that he forced himself on a female inmate as well as charges related to a domestic disturbance. The Erie County Sheriff’s Office followed that up this week by firing the sergeant, Robert M. Dee. Sheriff John C. Garcia said Dee had violated no less than eight internal policies and procedures. Read more

Dr. David Hughes, 53, a Kaleida executive and 'a tireless dynamo trying to make medicine better': Dr. David P. Hughes, the executive vice president for strategy and partnerships at Kaleida, died Tuesday. "He had an unbelievable intelligence and intuition to him that is really hard to find," said ECMC President and CEO Thomas J. Quatroche Jr., who knew Hughes for two decades. Read more

Arrest made in racist graffiti spray-painted on fence in Niagara County: A Town of Niagara man is charged with a hate crime after authorities say he spray-painted a stark racist threat on a Black neighbor’s fence. Howard Murphy, 60, was arrested on a charge of criminal mischief as a hate crime, a felony, Niagara County officials announced Friday, and federal hate crime charges are possible in this case, too. Read more

'You should never see the light of day again': Man who burned girlfriend to death gets maximum sentence: State Supreme Court Justice M. William Boller said Friday the case against Frank J. Bredt Jr. led to the "most horrendous trial" in his 16 years as a judge. In fact, he had been asked for the first time if he required counseling due to his involvement. Read more

Don Paul: Muggier into Saturday night, with a few bumps along the way: “Much of Saturday will be mostly to partly sunny, warm and humid, with a diminishing breeze in the afternoon,” Paul writes. “While much of the day will be rain-free, the threat of showers and thunderstorms will increase from the west late in the day and into evening.” Expect high temperatures in the mid-70s to low 80s. Read more

Channel 4 news director fired; 'toxic work environment' cited: The timing of Lisa Polizzi’s firing is strange considering the news department is in the middle of covering last weekend's mass shooting at the Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue and Polizzi is considered to have strong news judgment. Read more

Alan Pergament: Why Don Postles and Scott Levin have been off the air: “It is unusual for main local news anchors to take days off during the May sweeps, especially when one of the biggest news stories in decades is being covered. But WIVB-TV (Channel 4) co-anchor Don Postles and WGRZ-TV (Channel 2) co-anchor Scott Levin have good reasons for missing the last few days,” Pergament writes. Read more

Josh Allen at 26: Bills QB is in historic company as a TD-maker: In observance of Josh Allen's birthday, it’s a good time to recognize how his production stacks up at this still-early stage of his career and what milestones are on his immediate horizon. Read more

Bills Mailbag: What will James Cook's role be on offense as a rookie?: From games 14 to 17, Devin Singletary played at least 54 offensive snaps, a number he reached just twice in the first 13 games. His production continued into the postseason. The addition of Cook in the second round shouldn’t change Singletary’s spot on the depth chart, Jay Skurski says. Read more

• Actor Mike Myers showed his support for Buffalo by wearing a Sabres jersey during an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." “Just wanted to send some love to the people of Buffalo,” Myers said. “They’re our neighbor to the south – I’m from Toronto, Canada ... I was just thinking how much we love Buffalo and wanted to send our love to you. That’s all.”

• The new Ferris Wheel at Buffalo RiverWorks will soon open to the public, perhaps Memorial Day weekend, but a select few got a sneak peek at the ride – the Buffal”O” – during its unveiling Thursday evening, Buffalo Rising’s Newell Nussbaumer reports.

• "The 2022 summer concert season is shaping up to be the busiest in three years, with major shows booked in Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and everything in between," writes NYup.com's Geoff Herbert, sharing a list of Upstate New York's 35 must-see shows.

Have thoughts on the Good Morning, Buffalo newsletter? Email feedback@buffnews.com.

Get local news delivered to your inbox!

Ten people were gunned down at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday in a horrifying mass shooting that officials were quick to label as "pure evil" and racially motivated. The shooting stunned a community basking in a warm May afternoon, with shoppers filling the Tops in a predominantly Black neighborhood at 1275 Jefferson Ave. 

Still images and video clips purportedly showing portions of the shooting had circulated on social media in the hours after the horrific mass shooting that took place at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue.

Social platforms have learned to remove violent videos of extremist shootings more quickly over the past few years. It’s just not clear they’re moving quickly enough. Police say that when a white gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others Saturday in a “racially motivated violent extremist” shooting in Buffalo, he livestreamed the attack to the gaming platform Twitch. It didn’t stay there long; a Twitch spokesperson said it removed the video in less than two minutes. While that's much faster than the 17 minutes it took Facebook to remove a similar video in 2019, copies of the video continued to circulate online Sunday.

Payton S. Gendron, 18, of Broome County, was arraigned before Buffalo City Court Judge Craig Hannah on a first-degree murder charge. If found guilty, he faces a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole.

Payton S. Gendron, 18, of Broome County, was arraigned before Buffalo City Court Judge Craig Hannah on a first-degree murder charge. If found guilty, he faces a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole.

WIVB-TV (Channel 4) co-anchor Don Postles and WGRZ-TV (Channel 2) co-anchor Scott Levin have good reasons for missing the last few days.

The state has suspended without pay a corrections officer suspected of crudely mocking the victims of Saturday's massacre at a Tops Markets in Buffalo in a "despicable" social media meme.

The quick response of Buffalo Police may have prevented the death toll from surpassing the 10 victims who were slain at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue on Saturday, authorities said. But the circumstances around the peaceful surrender of the white supremacist shooter remained a sore spot among some in the Black community on Sunday afternoon.

The 18-year-old man accused in Saturday’s racist massacre scoped out the Tops supermarket in Buffalo the day before the shooting and was asked by a manager to leave, according to the manager’s brother.

The Orchard Park Democrat said he fired them for “gross insubordination” following a heated exchange Tuesday in his West Seneca district office during which he said they accused him of being a “political coward.”

The man accused of shooting 10 people Saturday at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue on Saturday has been indicted on charges related to the shooting.

Once the crime tape was removed around Tops, the community on Thursday was able to approach a memorial with the names and photos of each of the victims killed in the shooting on Saturday.

Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.