Not to lose sight of the point of this thread.
The oldest victim of the shooting was Ruth Whitfield. She was 86 years old and had stopped by the store to get dinner after visiting her husband at the nursing home.
Tops is in a food desert, and given that store will be closed for a while (maybe even forever), many people won’t have a way to get safe and healthy groceries.
Mrs Whitfield was also the mother of the former fire commissioner of Buffalo, she was a pillar of the community. Such a loss, not just to her family.
I didn't realize that this area was a food desert, I wonder if that was part of the decision of the monster to go there. I read there are people organizing shopping groups for community members who don't have vehicles and now I know why. In a wasteland of tragedy, good people will always come through. As Fred Rogers' mother said, look for the helpers.
Yeah, if you check the map, Tops and the Family Dollar down the street are the only shops that show up on the map. I presume the Family Dollar is the store he wanted to continue his rampage at after he was finished at Tops.
Yes, the neighborhood is strong, they worked hard to get the Tops Market there in the first place. It would be in everyone's best interest if it reopened as soon as possible.
For Cordelia F for her well reasoned post. When you want to point fingers point at yourself first. Yeah - it's Biblical, the verses about taking the log out of your own eye before pointing out the speck in the other person's eye, and confessing your own sins before accusing others. Hate is hate is hate, whether it be for race, ethnicity, religion or politics. There's hate in the world as it is - as evidenced by what happened in Buffalo, and in Cali this weekend. We can be angry, we can disagree, but we need to stop the wholesale hatred of one another.
I for one am foot stomping, steam coming from ears mad after learning is that he threatened to shoot up his school graduation just last year. He was a known risk. Daddy bought one of the guns he had with him, he legally purchased the gun he used. He should have been red flagged and all weapons taken from him, and no new purchases allowed. Yes, I know he could have found a way to get a gun anyway, but really, even if the government couldn't take away his guns, shouldn't his family have done so? They guy who shot up the King Soopers in Colorado had his gun taken away by his family, but one of them gave it back. At Sandy Hook, the gun was purchased by the mother (who the first killed), the Oxford MI school shooter's parents purchased the gun. Arrrgh.
