BUFFALO, N.Y. — Marcus Morris said he had to pray before he got out of his vehicle and walked into Tops Friendly Markets, where 10 people, including his uncle, were killed in a racist mass shooting last year.
Another customer, Kevin Samuels, said he could “feel the presence of the situation” when he stepped through the door of the Buffalo grocery store.
Tuesday, the day before the gunman is to be sentenced on murder, hate crime and other state charges, was the first time both men have been to Tops since the May 14 shooting that killed Ruth Whitfield, Pearly Young, Katherine Massey, Roberta Drury, Heyward Patterson, Celestine Chaney, Andre Mackneil, Geraldine Talley, Aaron Salter and Margus Morrison, Morris’ uncle.
Three other people were injured.
“Your chest definitely gets a little heavy just pulling in. I sat in the car and said a little prayer before I got out for all the victims, especially my uncle,” said Morris, 27, of east Buffalo.
“You can’t not think about it when going in there,” he added.
Morris said that he knew about the sentencing but that it wasn’t a factor in his decision to go to the store.
Samuels said he used to shop at Tops, the only accessible supermarket on the east side of Main Street, “quite often” but stopped after the shooting because he needed time to heal.
Authorities have said the gunman, Payton Gendron, was dressed in tactical gear when he opened fire at Tops, which he streamed on the social media platform Twitch before the stream was taken down.
He fatally shot three people and wounded one in the parking lot before he entered Tops, where Salter, a security guard at the store, confronted him, authorities have said. Officials said that Salter’s rounds didn’t appear to penetrate Gendron’s ballistic gear and that the gunman shot and killed him before he shot others.
A document that Gendron, who is white, posted online claimed he had been radicalized and appeared to adhere to the “false replacement” theory,…
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