Four weeks later, fear and hope on Jefferson Avenue

Tents and vans are still set up where groups offer free meals and groceries. People continue to drop by the memorials along the chain link fence that surrounds the parking lot.

More than four weeks after the massacre at the Tops Markets in the heart of the East Side, the national media that trained its cameras on Buffalo's horror and grief are long gone. The crowds of people grieving, praying and volunteering have dwindled.

Now, workers are busy gutting the shuttered supermarket, filling trash bins with debris, preparing for it to reopen at the end of July.

Jefferson Avenue is open to traffic.

But for the people who live near the Tops on Jefferson and relied on it, life is far from back to normal. Just about everyone shopped at that store. Some were there earlier that day. Others were planning on stopping by to do some shopping. Many heard the gunfire.

They've all seen the outpouring of love for their neighborhood since May 14, and that has helped ease some of the pain and shock.

But as the spotlight fades, they hope the resolve for change does not.

The Buffalo News spoke with several residents of the Cold Spring neighborhood around Tops about what they are feeling now and what they hope will be done about racism, gun violence and the future of their community.

Work to be done

"Guns," Jah'asya Cannon said. "Get rid of them all."

To the 15-year-old sophomore at Leonardo da Vinci High School, the answer is simple.

"It feels like anybody can get a gun," she said.

Jah'asya was with her mother, baby sister and grandmother on Jefferson Avenue on Friday, a block from Tops where a gunman killed 10 people, wounded three more and traumatized a community three weeks earlier.

It has been a traumatizing three weeks for their family. They weren't inside the store – but any one of them could have been.

Jah'sya's mother, Teeyada Cannon, said she shopped at the store regularly. She was driving nearby on that fateful afternoon and thought about stopping by to pick up a few things for a cookout, but ended up changing her mind. After getting home, she turned on the TV and learned what had taken place. She has refused to set foot inside any grocery store since.

"What's going to happen? Is someone going to be outside waiting for me to come out? Are they going to come inside the store and shoot the store up?" she said as her 8-month-old baby slept soundly on her chest.

Cannon's mother in law, Gwen Chaffin, also is struggling with what used to be a simple chore. She tried going to a Wegmans earlier this week, but had to leave.

"Not scared. It was just a funny feeling that came over me," she said.

She added that she is planning to see a counselor.

Chaffin, a retired social worker, said she was heartened to by the outpouring of love for her community.

"I pray this continues," she said.

"I'd like to see people come into this community – our politicians – and do what needs to be done to make it a community again. There's so much work that needs to be done over here," she added.

Promote peace, love and unity

Ernie McClellan still can't bear to drive past Tops.

He lives on East Utica Street, one block north and one block west of the store where he would stop two or three times a week to pick up groceries, play the lottery numbers and cash his checks.

On the afternoon of May 14, the retired General Motors worker was preparing to end his shift at People Inc. in West Seneca, but he was delayed 20 minutes.

He had been planning to stop by the Tops on Jefferson on the way back home, but by the time he arrived, his neighborhood was a crime scene. Police vehicles filled the street and yellow tape zig-zagged across intersections.

"It was by the grace of God I didn't go directly to Tops," he said last week, sitting on his front porch.

McClellan has watched the steady flow of politicians and volunteers who have come to his neighborhood.

"We thank them for coming and taking an interest," he said. But he wonders: "Where were you before?"

The East Side has welcomed the strangers, he said, and he hopes outsiders see that that his neighborhood is a warm community that embraces diversity.

McClellan said that he, as a Black man, feels that's not the case outside the city.

"When we go to the suburbs, we're scrutinized for the color of our skin," he said. "They watch us ... I can feel people looking at me." 

McClellan doesn't see how anyone will be able to bear to go to Tops when it reopens.

"They should tear it down. Put up a memorial. Put a park there. It's never going to feel the same," he said.

He is hopeful that politicians will do more things to help the East Side rise, things as simple as making sure more potholes are filled. But he questioned to the plan to spend $1 billion to cover the Kensington Expressway.

"They should take that money and develop the East Side," he said.

He also thinks the media needs to stop dwelling so much on violence and negativity.

"If you talk about peace, love and unity, you'll promote it," he said.

'We've got to come together'

Barbara Brown watched her children playing with a plastic, toy gun from the doorway of her parents' home on East Utica, across the street from the Frank E. Merriweather Library on Jefferson Avenue, just up the block from Tops.

"I don't like you playing with that," she sighed as her 12-year-old son played with the fake gun.

Brown said she went to the Tops with her 4-year-old daughter, Simone, on May 14 to buy caramel and apples to make candied apples, and had just gotten back to her parents' house when they heard gun shots.

"It shocked me," she said. "Duck and run," she told her daughter. 

At first she thought it was the sort of gun violence that is all too common in marginalized neighborhoods. But she watched the news and saw it was something different.

"It was like watching a movie," she said.

Brown is glad President Biden came.

"It was a nice gesture," she said.

But she wants the goodwill to continue and for people to address the racism that drove the killer to come to Buffalo to kill Black people.

"No one is born a racist," she said. "They're taught that. We've got to come together."

'I hope it never fades'

Businessman Steven Mackie owns a building on East Utica about a block away from the Tops and across the street from the Frank Merriweather Library, a community and cultural hub on Jefferson Avenue.

Mackie has owned the multilevel building for about four years, and has rented it out multiple times. Now, he plans to open a consignment shop, but he hasn’t come up with a name yet.

People eventually will forget about the mass shooting, he said, adding that he thinks that is a shame. He hopes the people coming down to the site just don’t come get the food and “all the freebies.”

“Remember the incident, and make sure we hold this guy accountable,” he said.

“I hope it never fades, and it should not, but it’s going to with everything. Out of sight. Out of mind, and everybody goes back normal,” he added.

'No real solution'

Nastasha Edwards said she was a frequent shopper at Tops and knew Aaron Salter Jr., a retired Buffalo police officer and Tops security guard who was killed in the shooting.

She brought her kids, Nala, 11, and Nathan, 4, to Jefferson Avenue for a religious event across the street from the Tops.

“It helps to lift my spirit,” she said. “My spirit said, 'Get up and go.' "

She fears that as the shooting fades from memory, others will keep happening.

“It keeps going on and on and there’s no real solution,” she said.

Praying for healing

Loretta Barner realizes that, at some point, the food donations will stop coming, the monetary contributions will dry up and the outpouring of support will slow down. But she accepts it.

“It’s called life,” she said.

But it will be a time for people to put their lives back together.

“It’s going to take some healing, and it’s going to take some work,” Barner said.

“I’m praying that something good will come out of it,” she said.