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PHOTOS: A moment of silence at the Tops shooting scene

Mourners gathered for a moment of silence around the growing memorials Saturday, exactly one week after a gunman opened fired at the Tops Market on Jefferson Avenue, targeting Blacks and killing 10 people.

A teddy bear among bouquets of flowers and signs.
Eileen Elibol
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BTPM
A teddy bear among the bouquets of flowers and signs of the Jefferson Avenue memorial.

At the store's parking lot and on sidewalks around it, the mood was a mixture of tension and somber reflection as the city marked one week since the racist massacre.

At exactly 2:30 p.m., the moment the gunman opened fire, people who gathered and placed flowers near the corner where the victims have been memorialized observed a moment of silence. A dozen workers stood in a line outside of the Tops store entrance. Nearby, some mourners wept.

After the mostly silent observance, churches across the city tolled their bells 13 times in honor of the dead and the wounded.

Ten Black people were killed on May 14, when a white gunman in body armor targeted shoppers and workers at a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Three others were injured in the attack, which federal authorities are investigating as a hate crime.

The victims included four grocery store employees as well as six customers, several of them regulars at the store, according to the Buffalo Police Department and those who knew them.

The names of the 10 shooting victims one a white sign with multi-colored handprints on it.
Eileen Elibol
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BTPM
The names of the dead on a sign at the scene of the May 14 mass shooting.

Celestine Chaney, 65, of Buffalo; Roberta A. Drury, 32, of Buffalo; Andre Mackniel, 53, of Auburn, N.Y.; Katherine Massey, 72, of Buffalo; Margus D. Morrison, 52, of Buffalo; Heyward Patterson, 67, of Buffalo; Aaron Salter Jr. 55, of Buffalo; , Geraldine Talley, 62, of Buffalo; Ruth Whitfield, 86, of Buffalo; and Pearl Young, 77, of Buffalo were killed in the attack.

Christopher Braden, 55, of Lackawanna, Zaire Goodman, 20, of Buffalo; and Jennifer Warrington, 50, of Tonawanda, were injured in the shooting.

The alleged gunman, 18-year-old Payton Gendron of Conklin, has been charged with murder and is being held without bail.

The shooter's racist attack deeply wounded east Buffalo’s Black community, and memorials to the victims spill out around the neighborhood's only full-scale grocery store.

A man wearing a beige protective vest while holding a large black and white "BLM757" flag.
Eileen Elibol
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BTPM
Japharii Jones, leader of Black Lives Matter 757 in Richmond, VA.

The supermarket shooting has also drawn support from activists around the nation. On Saturday, organizers with Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a national collective of chapters, held a vigil for Buffalo. Organizers from Boston, Detroit, Virginia Beach, Virginia and Minneapolis attended and vowed to be with Buffalo’s residents as they continued to heal from the racist attack.

Jacob Blake Sr., the father of Jacob Blake Jr., a Black man paralyzed after being shot several times by police in Kenosha, WI in 2020, said he flew into town from the Chicago area to offer support to the victims’ families.

A man wearing a black and white "ALWAYS FILM THE POLICE" t-shirt.
Eileen Elibol
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BTPM
Jacob Blake Sr. of Chicago, father of Jacob Blake, a Wisconsin man who was paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer. The officer was not charged in the incident.

When his son was shot, Blake said, he needed a true outpouring of support.

“What I needed was somebody just holding my hand,” he said. “I just want the families to know that we’re here to give them what they need.”

Cher Desi, a niece of 86-year-old victim Ruth Whitfield, said she would use her own grief to push for change across the nation.

“I don’t want anyone leaving here and judging people on their race, on their religion, or where they come from,” said Desi, who now lives in Orlando, FL, but often returned to Buffalo to visit the aunt who raised her. “How many people have to be devastated? The senseless killing has to stop.”

All photos credited to Eileen Elibol/Buffalo Toronto Public Media. The Associated Press contributed to this report.