Buffalo

New York’s red flag law should have prevented the Buffalo grocery shooting, but the law failed to live up the promises made when it was enacted, Vox noted Tuesday. The first paragraph of the Vox column got right to the point : “After a gunman killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul publicly wondered why a state law designed to prohibit individuals like him from obtaining a gun didn’t work as intended.” The column continued: In 2019, New York enacted an extreme risk prevention law, otherwise known as a “red flag law,” that can bar individuals who present an immediate danger to themselves or others from possessing firearms. The Buffalo shooter didn’t have a previous criminal record, but he had made serious threats of violence that were brought to the attention of police. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks on Sunday, May 15, 2022, in Buffalo, New York. (Joshua Bessex/AP) Vox pointed to the fact that the 18-year-old Buffalo … [Read more...] about Vox: NY Red Flag Law Failed to Prevent Buffalo Shooting

When a shooter attacked a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, over the weekend, its security guard tried to stop him. At least one of his shots hit the gunman, but it didn’t stop the deadly rampage because the gunman was wearing body armor. Ten Black people died in the racist massacre, including security guard Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo police officer hailed as a hero. It’s the latest mass shooting in which the gunman apparently came prepared for anyone trying to stop him with a gun. At least 21 mass shooters over the last four decades have worn some kind of body armor — and the majority of those were within the last 10 years, according to a database maintained by The Violence Project, a nonpartisan research group that tracks gun violence. Among them: A massacre that killed 12 people and injured dozens more at a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012, and another in nearby Boulder that left 10 people dead at a supermarket last year. The shooter in Texas’s deadliest … [Read more...] about Buffalo is latest mass shooting by gunman wearing body armor

A New York corrections officers been suspended without pay after allegedly sharing a social media post joking about the Tops supermarket shooting over the weekend that left 10 dead and three others injured. Gregory C. Foster II, a correction officer at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, about a hour away from Buffalo, shared a "despicable social media post," the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) said in a Tuesday statement . He allegedly shared a meme on Facebook that showed a photo of the Tops supermarket with a caption about a “clean up” in multiple aisles DOCCS confirmed. Officials reveal new details in Buffalo shooting investigation May 17, 2022 02:32 Authorities have called the supermarket attack a hate motivated shooting as 11 of the 13 people shot were Black by a white 18-year-old gunman. The shooting is now the subject of local and federal investigations. Attorney … [Read more...] about New York corrections officer suspended for allegedly sharing social media post mocking Buffalo supermarket shooting

The US white supremacist who shot dead 10 people and called for London Mayor Sadiq Khan to be killed is a terrorist using the internet for an international platform. Deranged, bigoted teenager Payton Gendron’s racist killing spree in Buffalo, New York state was motivated by the murderous prejudice of the extremist far right. Calling for the killing of African American, Jews and Muslim Khan, one of three people labelled high profile enemies by Gendron, illustrates the global danger posed by fanatics. Ranting, unhinged Donald Trump regularly targeted London’s Mayor and it’s easy to guess why the racist then President picked out Khan. Gendron focusing on specific cases in Britain underlined both why we must discuss crimes here sensitively and why there are zealots around the world who exploit cases here for their own evil ends. Decent folk everywhere have lots in common. We must never let terrorists divide us. Shame on you Keir Starmer’s party is on the side of families … [Read more...] about ‘Buffalo killer was motivated by murderous prejudice of extreme far right’

Republican Sens. are rejecting calls for gun control coming from President Joe Biden and other Democrats in the wake of the Buffalo, New York, mass shooting. The Hill notes Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY) Charles Grassley (R-IA) have made very clear gun control is a non-starter. On Tuesday, Barrasso responded to the Democrat push for gun control, saying, “It just doesn’t seem to be helpful to me to go after law-abiding citizens and our Second Amendment rights, so I’m going to continue to hold that position.” Grassley said, “I think I heard a Black person from Buffalo on television say that guns don’t kill, people kill. So what are you going to accomplish by gun control?” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) sent out a fundraising email on Monday to fill his campaign coffers off of the Buffalo, New York, mass shooting. https://t.co/WnjHm1XKNk — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 18, 2022 Grassley was referencing the Buffalo resident who went viral in an interview after the … [Read more...] about Republican Senators Reject Gun Control as a Response to Buffalo Mass Shooting

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Buffalo resident Jamie Lash was giddy as Buffalo Bills player Josh Thomas draped his arm around her shoulder and smiled for a picture Wednesday. It was a rare moment of lightness in a week spent mourning the violent deaths of 10 people at the Tops supermarket where she used to work. “It means unity. It means support,” Lash said, adjusting the Bills cap someone else from the team had placed on her head. “We see the Bills mafia everywhere supporting us,” said Thomas, a defensive back on the team. He was one of dozens of players and staff from the NFL team, the NHL's Buffalo Sabres and the Buffalo Bandits professional lacrosse team to emerge from four tour buses at the scene of Saturday's racist attack, where they laid flowers, dished out food and handed out groceries. The first stop was a group visit to a memorial at the edge of the store's parking lot, where several players placed flowers in front of cut-outs of doves, each bearing the name of a victim. … [Read more...] about Buffalo sports teams offer support at site of mass shooting

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday introduced a plan for tighter gun control, vowed to investigate social media platforms and promised to fight domestic terrorism after a gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday . Hochul, during a news conference, said the intersection of "two crises" led to the shooting: "The mainstreaming of hate speech, of racism and the easy access to military style weapons and magazines." "How many more lives have to be needlessly taken for us before we face the truth?" she said. "We can no longer look away and we’re not just going to call it out." Hochul said that New York State Police will now be required to "file for an Extreme Risk Protection Order" when they believe an individual is a threat. According to current red flag laws in the state , police had the option of reporting. The governor also said she will work with the legislature to pass laws that require police to report gun crimes within … [Read more...] about Gov. Kathy Hochul vows to curb gun violence, probe social media platforms, fight domestic terror in wake of Buffalo shooting

Some 2,000 Black people were killed from 1865 to 1876, during the Reconstruction era, the result of a widespread effort to use white supremacist terror to maintain economic, political and social control over newly emancipated Black people, according to the Equal Justice Initiative . This reign of terror worked to stamp out any semblance of Black progress after slavery, working hand in hand with oppressive Jim Crow laws that enforced legal segregation throughout the country for decades. A white man is accused of continuing this legacy of white supremacist terror on Saturday when he allegedly traveled to a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, and killed 10 people , most of them Black. Experts say his act was not episodic or unprecedented, but is part of America’s violent history of using racial terror to intimidate and exert power over Black people. In the days since the shooting, conversations about hate crimes and gun control have consumed the nation. … [Read more...] about The Buffalo shooting was centuries in the making, experts say

Dakarai Singletary couldn’t sleep Saturday night, after the shooting at Tops Friendly Markets, a grocery store up the street from his home in Buffalo, New York. The shooting, allegedly carried out by an 18-year-old white man, left 10 dead and three injured. Eleven of the victims were Black. The supermarket is now temporarily closed after the shooting, leaving Singletary’s community with even less access to fresh food. That kept him awake that night, planning what to do. “I read the news everyday, and when I see mass shootings I always pray,” Singletary, 27, said. “But when it’s in your neighborhood and I’d hop on Instagram and see that it was somebody that I know who was affected, it hits harder.” Buffalo’s Masten Park is one of the many Black neighborhoods across the country that has limited access to grocery stores selling fresh goods at an affordable price. Now that the supermarket, which opened in 2003, has temporarily closed in the shooting’s aftermath, it poses new … [Read more...] about Buffalo’s Tops, where racist gunman attacked, is a lifeline in a Black community’s food desert

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Every Monday, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here. Question of the Week Caitlin Flanagan’s masterful “ Chasing Joan Didion ” has me thinking about travel. What have you learned while away from home? Paint a picture of where you went and share your insights. Conversations of Note Top of the mind: the mass shooting Saturday in Buffalo, New York, in which a white-supremacist terrorist killed 10 people. My colleague Graeme Wood, an expert on murderous extremists , read the killer’s apparent manifesto and grappled with whether it ought to be shared or suppressed. The Los Angeles Times editorial board argued that “Americans have ignored the insidious creep of white supremacy into the public discourse to the point that it has become normalized.” … [Read more...] about Tucker Carlson Deserves Blame—But Not for Buffalo