TUESDAY, MAY 17 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
buffalo shootingBY JOANNA SLATER,
MONIKA MATHUR
AND RAZZAN NAKHLAWIA grandmother who volun-
teered every weekend at her
church’s food pantry. An octoge-
narian who was a devoted care-
giver to her husband of 68 years.
A retired police officer and ama-
teur inventor who tried to stop
the shooter.
These were some of the lives
cut short in a blaze of hate-fueled
violence in Buffalo on Saturday.
The attack at a busy supermar-
ket where 10 people were killed
and three were injured was an act
of “pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff
John Garcia said. Authorities
have described the shooting as a
hate crime and a case of racially
motivated violent extremism.
They are also exploring a possible
domestic terrorism charge. Elev-
en of the 13 people shot were
Black.
The suspect, 18-year-old Pay-
ton Gendron, is believed to have
published a lengthy online docu-
ment riddled with racist, antise-
mitic and white supremacist be-
liefs. The text detailed plans for
the attack, including the intent to
target a predominantly Black
neighborhood. Gendron has
pleaded not guilty to a charge of
first-degree murder.
The mass shooting appears to
be the latest in a painful litany of
violence driven by hate and rac-
ism. They include attacks on a
Black church in Charleston in
2015, a synagogue in Pittsburgh
in 2018 and a Walmart in El Paso
in 2019. Domestic terrorism inci-
dents have soared nationwide in
recent years, a Washington Post
investigation found, driven chief-
ly by white supremacist, anti-
Muslim and anti-government ex-
tremists.
In Buffalo and beyond, family
members of the victims were
grappling with a loss that was
both sudden and incomprehensi-
bly cruel — mothers, fathers,
brothers and sisters targeted for
the color of their skin, gone in a
hail of bullets at their neighbor-
hood grocery store.
Here’s what we know about
those killed:
Pearl Young, 77
For years, Young spent every
Saturday morning the same way:
volunteering at a food pantry run
by her church.
She helped prepare and hand
out boxes of food from the Good
Samaritan Church of God in
Christ at an outpost in a Buffalo
park, according to her son, Da-
mon Young. She relished interact-
ing with her community and
viewed volunteering as part of
her religious duty.
“My mom just felt that she
needed to give back to people,”
said Damon Young, 48.
Born in Fayette, Ala., Pearl
Young spent much of her life in
Buffalo, where she was a “strict
but loving” mother to Damon and
his older brother and sister. She
was “full of joy,” her son said —
“she just loved life, and she loved
the church.” She loved children,
too, and was a proud grandmoth-
er to eight. At 77 years old, she was
still working as a high school
substitute teacher.
She and her son had a shared
fondness for ambrosia salad,
which they’d prepare and eat
together, though she “couldn’t go
as hard as me later in life” after
becoming diabetic. And she was a
longtime fan of the soap opera
“The Young and the Restless.”
When he picked her up for er-
rands or outings, Damon Young
said, “she would always tell me,
‘Wait until ‘The Young and the
Restless’ goes off. Pick me up after
that.’”
The day of the shooting, Pearl
Young went out to breakfast and
asked to be dropped off at the
Tops Friendly Markets afterward
to shop. Damon was planning on
picking her up, and the two had
been communicating back and
forth. Then she stopped respond-
ing and his phone began buzzing
with news alerts about the chaos
unfolding at the store.
“She wasn’t answering, wasn’t
calling back,” he said. “They said
it was some people wounded as
well, so I was kind of hoping for
that.”
At a school where authorities
shared updates with families, he
learned his mom had been fatally
shot. He said he just wanted to get
out of there and cried on his way
to his sister’s house.
He spent Sunday talking to
detectives and family and trying
to sort out funeral plans. It felt
surreal. His mom should have
been headed to work on Monday.
She was just telling him about a
bonus she was close to getting as
the end of the school year ap-
proached, joking, “Yeah, I’ll be
rich.”
He was up until 3 a.m. crying
and sifting through his memo-
ries.
“My mom was good,” Damon
Young said. “She was a good
person, man. She was.”
— Brittany ShammasRuth Whitfield, 86
Whitfield was a “blessing for
all those who knew her,” said her
son, retired Buffalo fire commis-
sioner Garnell W. Whitfield.
The 86-year-old mother had
spent the day taking care of her
husband at the nursing home
where he resides. On the way
home, she stopped at Tops, where
she was killed.
“You hear about gun violence.
You hear about a lot of these
things all the time,” her son Gar-
nell told The Post. “And unfortu-
nately, it’s a little different when it
impacts you personally.”
Whitfield was described as the
rock for the family, devoting her
life to taking care of her four
children and husband.
“She could have probably done
a number of other things with her
life and with her talents, but she
chose to use them on us,” her son
said. “I’m very thankful for the
example she set for us of how to
love each other unconditionally
and how to sacrifice our own
desires, our own opportunities,
for someone that we care about.”
For the past eight years, Whit-
field’s days had been spent taking
care of her husband of 68 years
after he was placed on a long-
term care facility. She would con-
stantly cut his hair, iron his
clothes, dress him and shave him.
“There’s very few days that she
did not spend time with him
attending to him,” her son said.
“She was his angel.”
Now her family is grappling
with the loss of a person who
“exemplified unconditional love,”
he added.
“We have to rally as a family
around my father and make sure
that he’s well cared for,” he said.
“Something she would be proud
of us for. So we’ve got a big task
ahead of us.” — María Luisa PaúlAndre Mackniel, 53
Mackniel was among those
killed in the shooting, his daugh-
ter Deja Brown said. She was too
distraught to speak further. Ja-
hon Smith, Mackniel’s cousin,
said in an email that he was going
to the supermarket to get a birth-
day cake for his son when he was
killed. Smith described Mackniel
as selfless and generous, a loving
father and grandfather who used
to check in on everyone. Smith
said Mackniel’s brother had died
earlier due to a brief illness,
which was a devastating loss for
his cousin. “This is a very hard
time for the family,” Smith said. “I
hope justice is served.”
Tracey Maciulewicz identified
herself on Facebook as Mackniel’s
fiancee and said that it was her
son’s birthday on Saturday. “To-
day my baby was born but today
my soul mate was taken. How do I
tell my son his daddy’s not com-
ing home? How do I as a mother
make it ok? Someone please tell
me because I really don’t know,”
she wrote. Maciulewicz did not
immediately respond to requestsfrom The Post. — Joanna Slater
and Danielle Douglas-GabrielKatherine ‘Kat’ Massey, 72
Massey was so tight with her
siblings, they even shared a
street.
On Saturday, Massey asked her
brother Warren to drop her off at
Tops to do some shopping, asking
him to return in 45 minutes. “I
came back and they were putting
out the tape,” Warren Massey told
The Post on Sunday. “I knew she
was gone when she didn’t call us.”
Choking back tears, Barbara
Massey described Kat, the oldest
of five children, as “the glue” of a
very close family. She was a well-
known community figure who
dressed up in costume at the local
public school and assisted in elec-
tions.
“She was the most wonderful
person in the world. She’d cut
grass in the local park, do the
trees, give kids on the street toys.
That was my sister, anyone she
could help,” Barbara Massey said.
Nearby, relatives passed around
cellphones, trying to reach offi-
cials who could tell them where
Kat’s body was.
Massey and her family grew up
on Cherry Street in Buffalo, she
said. Barbara and Warren lived
there their whole lives; Kat had
moved back about 13 years ago
when their parents died. Until
Saturday, three of the five were
still living. She renovated the
house and spruced up the neigh-
borhood.
“She loved the triangle. That’s
her pet. She did the flowers,” she
said. “Her biggest thing were the
schools.” Barbara broke down as
she described her sister renting a
costume as “Ms. Broccoli” — “for
children to learn to eat right.”
Massey wrote sometimes for
the Buffalo Challenger, a local
newspaper. Her sister said she
wrote about schools, drugs and a
topic she was concerned about:
guns. — Michelle BoorsteinCelestine Chaney, 65
Chaney, 65, was a survivor, her
son Wayne Jones said.
When Jones was around 12, he
remembers, he was called out of
school twice about his mother,
who suffered from brain aneu-
rysms. He would have to leave
class to go to the hospital, where
he was told she wouldn’t make it
through the day, Jones said.
“My grandmother had me go to
the foot of her bed and pray both
times,” Jones said. “And we made
it to 65.”
Born and raised on the east
side of Buffalo, Chaney was a
single mother and worked at a
suit manufacturing company and
a baseball cap company, her son
said. She was retired.
Chaney also survived breast
cancer after undergoing chemo-
therapy, Jones said. She would
often watch her six grandchildren
at her home and was a mother
figure to her niece, Latisha Mead-
ows, 40.
“She’s very loving, kind, always
there to talk,” Meadows said. Her
aunt, affectionately known as
“Aunt Stiney,” loved family gath-
erings, cookouts and playing
spades, she said.The family recently celebrated
her 65th birthday on May 6 with a
dinner with her granddaughter
and then a special Mother’s Day
“Paint and Sip” at Jones’s house,
featuring a home-cooked dinner
of beef ribs, macaroni and cheese,
greens and other family favorites.
“She was a beautiful person, a
spunky, independent woman,”
Jones said of his mom. “The life of
the party, just a joy to be around.”
Chaney and her sister Joann
Daniels, who survived the shoot-
ing, were very close, Meadows
said. From shopping to paying a
visit to each other’s homes, Dan-
iels and Chaney were “always
together, all the time,” Meadows
said. Chaney was the youngest of
four sisters. Now Daniels is the
last surviving sibling.
— Jasmine HiltonMargus D. Morrison, 52
Frederick Morrison, 49, was
outside enjoying his Saturday
when people started talking
about a shooting at Tops Friendly
Market. It was the grocery store
where his older brother Margus
D. Morrison, 52, did his regular
shopping.
When Frederick learned Mar-
gus was killed, “I broke down,” he
said.
Margus Morrison was a father,
husband and school bus aide.
Frederick said Margus liked his
job and described him as a fun,
lovable guy with a nice spirit who
liked to joke. While the brothers
did not actively discuss racism,
“we just know it’s there,” Freder-
ick said.
Just a couple of years apart, the
two grew up “tight like best
friends,” Frederick said. “It hurts
me so much right now because I
wasn’t expecting to lose him.” The
younger Morrison says their
mother, Theresa, is holding up
strong. He’d like his brother to be
remembered for his good energy.
“He was a joy to be around,” he
said. — Natalie ComptonHeyward Patterson, 67
Patterson grew up surrounded
by a close-knit extended family
just blocks from where he was
killed. They all called him “Boy
Tenny” — a nickname so in-
grained that his cousin couldn’t
recall its origin.
“I never called him by his gov-
ernment name. He was always
Boy Tenny, and I never asked any
questions on why,” said 54-year-
old Deborah Patterson, laughing.
“We just knew he loved us.”
Family members have been
stunned by the violence inflicted
on a community they know so
well, she said, describing it as
“one of the last places we’d expect
something like that to happen.”
They were not surprised that
Tenny (pronounced “Teenie”) was
there. He often drove members of
his church to Tops, helping them
load their groceries into his car
and then taking them home.
“That’s what he did all the time,”
Deborah Patterson said. “That’s
what he loved to do.”
He was one of those neighbor-
hood characters that everyone
seemed to know, said Yvonda
King, who had known him since
childhood. “One of the OGs of the‘hood,” she called him. He was
well dressed, gentlemanly and
sprightly — “a real-life, down-to-
earth man.”
Deborah Patterson said her
“big cousin” was a family man.
Their fathers were twins, and he
was always around growing up.
In adulthood, she said, he was a
devoted dad.
He loved his church, where he
served as a deacon and gained
another nickname, “Deac.” He
also loved singing.
“Oh my gosh, his voice is like
heaven-sent,” Deborah Patterson
said. “R&B, church songs — any-
thing. He was great at it. If you
were sad and heard him singing,
you would definitely have a smile
on your face.”
When she first heard of the
shooting, she didn’t believe it. A
day later, she said, she was “still
trying to really get a hold of it
being true.” She recounted in-
stances of racism she has encoun-
tered — “the locking of peoples’
doors” and “the clenching of
purses.” But she never thought it
would hit like this.
“I just don’t understand how at
the age of 18 — how did he get so
much hate in such a short period
of life?” Deborah Patterson asked
of the shooting suspect. “My mind
is just, like, somewhere,” she add-
ed.
She was trying to find comfort
in picturing Tenny helping with
groceries in heaven, and in an old
Patterson family saying: “We nev-
er say ‘Goodbye’ — always ‘In a
minute.’ ” — Brittany Shammas
and Silvia Foster-FrauAaron Salter Jr., 55
Described by Buffalo Police
Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia
as “a hero in our eyes,” Salter was
the security guard on duty when
the gunman began his deadly
barrage inside the supermarket.
Gramaglia said Salter, a retired
Buffalo police officer, tried taking
down the gunman and fired at
him multiple times — but the
bullets struck the shooter’s bul-
letproof vest.
“I’m pretty sure he saved some
lives today,” Salter’s son, Aaron
Salter III, told the Daily Beast.
“He’s a hero.”
Apart from having a three-
decade career in law enforce-
ment, Salter — who described
himself as a “jack of all trades a
master of none” in his LinkedIn
profile — was working on a proj-
ect to build cars with engines that
ran on clean energy.
“I would like to realize my
dream of getting cars to run off of
water using my newly discovered
energy source some day,” Salter
wrote on his LinkedIn profile.
That “newly discovered energy
source” was hydrogen-electroly-
sis, a process that splits water
molecules into hydrogen and oxy-
gen.
Salter was inspired to under-
take that project amid a 2011
spike in gas prices, he said in an
interview. After scouting the In-
ternet for alternative energy
sources, he ran across hydrogen-
electrolysis — a pique in interest
that eventually turned into a
company called AWS Hydrogen
Technologies and three workingprototypes, he said.
In a YouTube video posted in
2015, Salter — tinkering on his
2010 Ford F-150 pickup truck —
demonstrated how the system
worked. In a few years, he predict-
ed, scientists and engineers
would find that cars could run on
water.
For his family members, the
loss was unimaginable.
“I don’t think anybody could
ever anticipate something like
this happening,” Salter’s cousin
Adam Bennefield told the Daily
Beast. “I don’t think anybody can.
Everybody’s hurt right now, ev-
erybody’s upset.”
— María Luisa PaúlRoberta Drury, 32
Roberta Drury was a helper.
The youngest of four siblings,
she moved from Syracuse to Buf-
falo in 2010 to assist her oldest
brother and help care for his
children as he underwent treat-
ment for leukemia.
“She dropped everything to
move out there and play house
aunt,” said their sister, Amanda
Drury, 34. “She was really proud
of being able to step in for the
family.”
Roberta stayed on as her broth-
er’s home aide and business part-
ner; together they had been reha-
bilitating an old bar he had
bought, the Dalmatia.
“The two of them decided to
jump in and try to revive it,”
Amanda said, adding that post-
pandemic business was just be-
ginning to pick up. The extended
family is close: Every summer,
their mother rents a house in
Wildwood, N.J. “We all spend a
week together and Robbie’s al-
ways been right there, making
lunch, keeping her eye on the
little ones,” Amanda said, adding
that plans were already in place
for the gathering this July. “It’s
going to be tough.”
As an African American child
adopted at 18 months into a sub-
urban White family, Roberta was
no stranger to racism, her sister
said. But in their family, she said,
“race never mattered. So this is
just ugly on a level that as a family
we can barely wrap our heads
around.” — Tara BahrampourGeraldine Talley, 62
It’s fitting that people de-
scribed Talley, or “Gerri,” as the
sweetest. An avid baker, her Face-
book page is filled with desserts
made for loved ones, like cream
cheese apple cinnamon bread
pudding, chocolate peanut butter
pie and strawberry filled cup-
cakes.
Talley was at the supermarket
with her fiance Gregory Allen
running their Saturday errands.
According to an interview with
Buffalo News, Allen said the cou-
ple had split up to grab different
items when the shooting began.
Kaye Chapman-Johnson, Tall-
ey’s younger sister, told ABC
News, that their family is de-
stroyed by her death. “Our sister,
we had so many plans together, so
many plans, and everything has
just been stripped away from us,”
she said in the interview. “Our
lives will definitely never be the
same again.” — Natalie ComptonVictims’ families s truggle with losing their loved ones
HEATHER AINSWORTH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
A man takes a moment at a memorial outside the Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo on Monday after 10 people were killed and three were injured in a shooting Saturday.