'This is an assault on all of us,' Sharpton says as families share grief and outrage - Story by Buffalo News
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'This is an assault on all of us,' Sharpton says as families share grief and outrage
Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President of the National Action Network, speaks as he is joined by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump at the Antioch Baptist Church on Thursday, May 19, 2022.
The last time Marcus Talley heard from his mother, Geraldine, was Mother's Day.
He sent her a text wishing her a Happy Mother's Day. She wrote back: "Thank you."
"I never would have thought it would be the last time I would speak to her or hear from her," he said. "I never would have thought my mother would be shot dead – have a bullet go through her right temple on her head."
One by one, on the steps of Antioch Baptist Church on Fillmore Avenue, the families of four of the victims of the May 14 massacre at the Tops Markets store on Jefferson Avenue stepped before reporters and let their grief flow.
"How dare you!" cried out Robin Harris, the eldest daughter of another victim, Ruth Whitfield, stomping her foot on the sidewalk.
The heartbroken families were joined by civil rights leader, the Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, attorney Ben Crump, who has represented the families of the victims of the nation's most heinous hate crimes, and Buffalo attorney Terry Connors. Crump and Connors are representing the families in taking legal action against the gun manufacturers that made the weapons that the killer used in Buffalo's worst mass shooting. They're also being joined in the lawsuit by The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
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"It's easy for America to forget about Black people who are killed wrongfully," Crump told reporters. "It happens all the time. If we let a week go by, they won't even know their names. But we are going to know their names. We are going to continue to say their names."
Thursday afternoon, ahead of a vigil in the families' honor, the loved ones of Geraldine Talley, Andre Mackniel, Heyward Patterson and Ruth Whitfield tried to give words to their grief.
Marcus Talley was the first to step up to the microphones.
He held up a portrait of his mother, who was 62-years-old when she was killed.
Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President of the National Action Network listens as Marcus Talley and his wife Rosh speak about his mother Geraldine at the Antioch Baptist Church on Thursday, May 19, 2022. Geraldine was one of the ten killed in a shooting a Tops supermarket. (Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News)
"It's like Groundhog's Day," he said. "We've seen this over and over and over. Honestly speaking, I wouldn't be surprised if another event like this happens down the line."
Talley never thought such a horrible thing would happen in his hometown of Buffalo.
"It's hard for me to imagine the city in which I grew up, in the neighborhood in which grew up, the Tops on Jefferson which I went to many times growing up, that that would be the place of the next terrorist attack," he said.
Veronica White, Mackniel's aunt, sobbed as Sharpton and Crump held her.
Mackniel was from Buffalo and was living in Auburn, but was back in town to celebrate his son Andre Jr.'s third birthday.
He went to Tops to buy him a birthday cake and car, White said.
"He went to the store," White said, "and he was shot in the head."
Jaques Patterson, son of Heyward Patterson, covers his face as his mom speaks at the Antioch Baptist Church on Thursday, May 19, 2022. Heyward Patterson was one of the 10 killed in a mass shooting at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue.
Twelve-year-old Jaques Patterson planned to speak, too.
But when he approached the microphones, he put his hands to his face and didn't move.
His mother, Tirzah Patterson, wrapped her arms around her son.
"This is his son," she said. "They took his father. He will grow up fatherless. He has to live after this. I have to pray that God gives me the strength to raise him to the best of my ability."
She said that she was no longer married to Heyward Patterson, who worked as a driver, taking shoppers to and from Tops, but they were still friends and the father remained close to his son.
"He was in his life. He took care of him. He didn't lack for anything. Anything he asked for, he got," she said.
Several of Ruth Whitfield's family, including former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, shared their heartbreak, as well.
"What am I going to do?" Harris said. "What am I supposed to do now. I keep seeing her face coming up everywhere I look. But I can't get to her."
Sharpton said he came to Buffalo to assist the families in any way his organization could, but also to do everything in his power to prevent another act of violence.
"This is an assault on all of us," Sharpton said. "They did not shoot these victims because of who they were. They shot them because of what they were. They were guilty of being Black, which meant that gun was shot at all of us. That's why all of us needs to be here."
He called on President Biden to hold a summit on "how to deal with hate crimes."
"I'm glad the president came. Now he has to do more than come. He's got to stop this."
Sharpton said he was impressed by Buffalo's embrace of the victims.
"Buffalo rose to the occasion," he said. "There's been no violence. There's been no riots. Buffalo stood up with love to answer to hate. Buffalo stood up with dignity to answer an atrocity."
The service, called "Healing the East Side," drew about 300 worshippers.
News Staff Reporter Harold McNeil contributed to this story.
posted by Kirk Tanter at
5/20/2022 04:10:00 pm
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