A 46-year-old man is in custody after shots were fired inside Hispanos Unidos de Buffalo's Virginia Street methadone clinic Thursday morning.
Police say that while no one was injured inside the clinic, the suspect had allegedly come from another shooting where a 47-year-old woman was injured. Police believe the shootings to be "attempted robberies tied to drug activity" and did not appear to be planned.
"They [both shootings] were an attempted robbery seeking what we believe to be drugs," Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said in a press conference at 1:30 p.m. "There was, at this point, no other motive other than an attempted robbery."
Police first responded to a shots-fired call in the 100 block of Pennsylvania Street, where a woman had been shot in her leg/hip inside a residence. This happened just before 8:45 a.m.
This map is approximate and is meant to illustrate the distance between the 100 block of Pennsylvania Street and the clinic. Specific addresses were not provided by Buffalo Police, only block numbers.
Police say that the suspect from that shooting then went into the methadone clinic in the 200 block of Virginia Street where he fired one shot at a wall in the lobby using an AR-15-style assault rifle. Police received the call regarding this shooting just two minutes after the initial call on Pennsylvania Street.
"At that point, there was a security guard that was inside the small vestibule area. And this security guard heroically ran after the individual, grabbed ahold of the weapon and the individual, the suspect, and held on," Gramaglia said.
During the scuffle, police say the suspect's gun was discharged multiple times, but no one was injured. Gramaglia said a security officer came out from behind the clinic door to assist.
The two security guards were able to force the suspect outside, hold him to the ground, and separate him from the rifle until the police arrived.
The suspect was detained by police and the gun was recovered. Gramaglia said the gun had a detachable 30-round magazine, which is illegal in NYS. It was loaded with more than the 10 rounds allowed under the New York State SAFE Act, but Gramaglia did not state how many.
"At this point, we are working very closely with the ATF [The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives] on tracing this particular weapon, they have a rush to get a trace on that so we can find out the origins of this weapon," Gramaglia said.
During the police press conference, Gramaglia was asked if this could have become a mass shooting.
"I'm not going to speculate on what could have been, what I will say is that the security guard took immediate action, grabbed this individual, and was able to take them into control and hold on to the weapon and hold on to him until help arrived," Gramaglia added, again reiterating that this shooting is believed to be an attempted robbery.
The woman injured in the Pennsylvania Street shooting was taken to Erie County Medical Center (ECMC). Police say her injuries are non-life threatening.
The suspect has also been taken to ECMC for an evaluation under the custody of Buffalo Police, and charges are pending. Gramaglia says at this time, "it's too premature to get into what the past history is" with the individual and police did not provide any additional information about the suspect or his history.
An early press release from Buffalo Police stated that a second suspect was believed to be involved in the Pennsylvania Street shooting and was later located by police on College Street. Gramaglia stated about an hour after that release that there is only one suspect and the second individual has been released.
On the scene where there were reports of an active shooter inside clinic on Virginia and Tenth on Buffalo’s West Side @WBFO pic.twitter.com/Pw676QjsH1
— Angelea Preston (@angelea_preston) November 10, 2022
