BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – They were caregivers and protectors and helpers, running an errand or doing a favor or finishing out a shift, when their paths crossed with a young man driven by racism and hatred and baseless conspiracy theories.
In a flash, the ordinariness of their day was broken at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, where in and around the supermarket’s aisles, a symbol of the mundane was transformed into a scene of mass murder.
Carts lay abandoned. Bodies littered the tile floor. Police radios crackled with calls for help.
Investigators will try, for days to come, to piece together the massacre that killed 10 people, all Black and apparently hunted for the color of their skin.
Those who loved them are left with their memories of the lost, who suffered death amid the simple task of buying groceries.