A year after Buffalo supermarket massacre, city’s black youth still in shock

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Jamari Shaw, 16, has a hard time playing at the park with his younger brothers in their East Buffalo neighborhood. He’s too busy watching for danger after a gunman killed 10 black people at a local grocery store.

Sometimes Alanna Littleton, 17, stays in the car when her family drives to the supermarket from their house just down the street.

“It’s such a level of tension,” Alanna said.

As the city marks the first anniversary of the racist massacre on Sunday, many young black people in Buffalo are grappling with a shattered sense of personal safety and complicated feelings about how their community was targeted.

While the white supremacist was sentenced to life in prison for his murders, others face a life of healing.

“I’m definitely going to take this with me,” Jamari said after school last week.

On May 14, 2022, an 18-year-old man got out of his car and began shooting people at Tops Family Market, with the stated goal of killing as many Black people as possible. He wore a bulletproof vest and live-streamed his shootings at customers and employees, killing 10 people and injuring three others.

The killer in Conklin, New York, a small town about 200 miles from Buffalo, wrote online that his motivation was to preserve white power in the United States, and he chose to target Buffalo’s East Side because it had a high percentage of black residents.

Since the mass shooting, Jamari has noticed that basketball courts are emptier in his neighborhood. People seem to be staying indoors more often. He’s reluctant to go to Tops for water or Gatorade before a workout, like he used to. He has a nagging feeling that he’s in danger anywhere, from anyone.

“The fact that he (the shooter) wasn’t that much older took its toll,” said Jamari, who is especially protective of his four siblings, the youngest of whom is 5. “Then you wonder, ‘Who’s going to do what?’ It could be your best friend. You never know.”

That’s what’s on Abijah Johnson’s mind, 17, as he walks past the store.

“I’m like, ‘What am I doing here? Isn’t it 10 people who are the same color as me who died because of a racist?'” he said at a recent conference organized by the family of shooting victim Ruth Whitfield, 86.

Whitfield, the oldest of the victims, died while buying seeds for her garden after spending time with her husband in a nursing home. Other victims included a man buying a birthday cake for his 3-year-old son, a church deacon who helped people get groceries home, a grassroots community activist and a retired Buffalo police officer who worked as a security guard.

“It was really hard to see my family grieving, and to understand that Black people, no matter where they are, are under constant threat. It’s so sad,” Whitfield’s great-granddaughter, Nia Funderburg, 19, said at the conference. “I hate that I have to carry that pain for us.”

Wayne Jones’ mother, Celestine Chaney, is among the victims. A youth football coach, she said the discussions black families often have with their sons about how to interact with law enforcement have expanded.

“That conversation you have with young black men about the police? Now you have to police everybody,” he said, describing how even going shopping, an activity he enjoyed with his mother, puts him on high alert.

Jamari remains hopeful that the community’s lingering pain will eventually ease, but he can’t imagine understanding what motivated the shooter.

“We get together, we rejoice, we feast together, all that,” he said. “And then to have somebody — it didn’t matter if they were white — he did it out of spite.”

“It’s more important than race,” Jamari said, “it’s more about mentality.”

As for the feelings of trauma felt by community members following the attack, they could linger for many years, ready to resurface on anniversaries or when a similar mass shooting hits the headlines.

“Often these effects subside over time, but these triggers can last a lifetime,” said Dr. Anita Everett, director of the Center for Mental Health Services at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The agency awarded the city a grant to address the trauma.

“In one way or another,” she said, “it affects almost everyone in and around a community.”