On Monday, friends and family were mourning the loss of 10 people who were killed in Buffalo, New York, when a gunman opened fire at a busy supermarket in what the FBI was investigating as a hate crime and motivational shooting. racial.
Thirteen people were shot Saturday afternoon at a Tops Friendly Markets store in a historic neighborhood on the city’s nearby East Side. Eleven of the people shot were black and two were white, police said.
Authorities released the names of the victims Sunday night, including a security guard hailed as a “hero” for trying to stop the gunman and a deacon who often drove shoppers home. Their ages range between 32 and 86 years.
LAST UPDATES:Buffalo gunman had ‘plans to continue his attack,’ police say
Here’s what we know about the victims:
Aaron Salter Jr.
Salter Jr., 55, was a retired Buffalo Police Department police lieutenant who was working as a security guard at the Tops store when the shooting occurred, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said.
Salter, of Lockport, New York, fired multiple shots that struck the gunman, who was wearing a bulletproof vest. The gunman returned fire, killing Salter, police said.
Gramaglia described Salter as a “beloved” security guard and “a hero in our eyes” for his actions during the shooting.
“He was a hero who tried to protect people in the store,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told CNN on Sunday.
Ruth Whitfield
Whitfield, 86, was shopping at Tops when she was shot and killed, her son, Garnell W. Whitfield, told The Buffalo News. She stopped to buy groceries after visiting her husband in a nursing home.visit he made every day, according to his son.
“My mom was an accomplished mom. My mother was a mother to orphans. She was a blessing to all of us. She loved God and she taught us to do the same,” Garnell Whitfield, who is a retired Buffalo Fire Commissioner, told the Buffalo News.
Whitfield, who was from Buffalo, had four children and eight grandchildren. He was a member of Durham Memorial AME Zion Church for 50 years, the New York Times reported, citing his daughter-in-law Cassietta Whitfield.
young pearl
Young, 77, of Buffalo, was shopping for groceries after having lunch with her sister-in-law when she was shot to death, AL.com reported. When Young’s adult son, Damon, arrived at the store to pick up his mother, he was met with sirens and police cars in the parking lot, his niece, Jacqueline Wright, told the news outlet.
Young was from Alabama and ran a food pantry in the Central Park neighborhood near where the shooting took place, feeding those in need for more than 25 years.
Katherine ‘Kat’ Massey
Massey, 72, of Buffalo, was an advocate for civil rights and education, her friend and former Erie County legislator Betty Jean Grant told the Buffalo News.
Her sister, Barbara Massey, stayed outside the Tops flat for hours dialing Kat’s phone in the hope that she would answer. But she that night she discovered that she had died.
“She was a beautiful soul,” Barbara Massey told the Buffalo News.
Last year, Massey wrote a letter in The Buffalo News in support of increased federal gun regulation, addressing urban street violence and mass shootings.
“There needs to be broad federal action/legislation to address all aspects of the problem,” he wrote in the letter. “Currently sought-after remedies inspired primarily by mass murder, i.e. universal background checks and assault weapons bans, essentially exclude the sources of our city’s gun problems. Illegal firearms, to through out-of-state arms trafficking, they are the main culprits.
Roberta Drury
Drury, 32, of Buffalo, had recently returned home to live with her mother, Dezzelynn McDuffie, and was recently helping his brother recover from a bone marrow transplant, WIVB-TV reported. Drury was the youngest of the victims.
Amanda Drury told the New York Times that her sister was “vibrant” and “was always the center of attention and had the whole room smiling and laughing.”
Heyward Patterson
Patterson, 67, was a deacon at a Buffalo church who had been to a soup kitchen before going to the Tops store, where he often offered to give people a lift home with their bags. Pastor Russell Bell of the State Tabernacle Church of God in Christ said Bell cleaned up the church and would do whatever it takes.
“From what I understand, he was helping someone put their groceries in their car when he was shot and killed,” Bell said.
Patterson regularly attended church, the Buffalo News reported.
“Whatever he had, he would give it to you,” Tirzah Patterson, his wife of 13 years, told the news outlet. “You ask, he will give it to you. If he doesn’t have it, he will find a way to get it or he will send you to the person who can give it to you. He will be greatly missed.”
Leonard Lane, the president of Buffalo FATHERS, worships at the church and told WIVB that Patterson “loved God. He loved his family. He loved serving the community. He did it whenever he could.”
matchmaker chaney
Chaney, 65, of Buffalo, is a breast cancer survivor, which has prompted her family to ask people to wear pink ribbons in her honor. She went shopping twice a month with her only son, Wayne Jones. According to the New York Times, Chaney was a single mother who worked at a suit manufacturer, then made baseball caps before retiring.
She traveled to Tops supermarket on Saturday to make her favorite strawberry shortcakes, Jones told Insider. Jones said he usually accompanied his mother shopping, but he stayed on Saturday because she was recovering from knee surgery.
“We went grocery shopping, that’s what we did. As she got older, I would take her grocery shopping,” he told Insider. “The one time we didn’t go together, there was a tragedy.”
Andre Mackneil
Mackneil, 53, of Auburn, New York, was in town visiting relatives and was picking up a surprise birthday cake for his grandson.
“She never went out with the cake,” Clarissa Alston-McCutcheon said of her cousin. She said that this kind of surprise was typical of him. He was “just a loving, caring guy. He loved family. He was always there for his family.”
Geraldine Talley
Talley, 62, worked as an executive assistant for years and was famous for her cheesecake, People reported.
Her niece, Kesha Chapman, told People that Talley was “the sweetest person.”
Talley “loved everyone. He was always smiling. He didn’t like confrontation. He wanted everything to be easy and full of love,” Chapman said.
Margus D. morrison
Morrison, 52, was from Buffalo, according to Buffalo police. He was the father of three children, Morrison’s mother told ABC 7 Buffalo.
Contributing: The Associated Press