Police barricades are gone from Jefferson Avenue Tops, but grief, sadness and memorials remain

What remains is grief, sadness and memorials to the dead.

"It's so hurtful to see something like this, to know that this could have been any one of us on any day of the week in this community, in this grocery store," Janae Baker said of the effects of the crime that authorities called "pure evil" committed by a white supremacist.

Baker, accompanied by a friend and their infants, gazed Friday at one of the memorials set around a tree on Landon Street across from the supermarket. For Baker and other people who continued to trek to the scene, the effects of the crime are deeply personal.

Baker grew up in the community, but now lives in Buffalo's Bailey/Delavan neighborhood. She remained a loyal patron of the Jefferson Avenue Tops and lamented the loss of so many elders, whom she described as the glue that held the community together.

"I can't imagine losing my grandmother like this," she said.

Some community activists said six days after the mass shooting was too soon to take down the barriers, but others said removing them won’t affect their grief or their efforts to make sure those who died are remembered.

“I don’t live right here anymore, but my son grew up in the 14208 and I’ve been coming here every single day since it happened to pay tribute to the victims,” said Pauleen Mara, 57. “I’m here to be white ally for our neighbors, to be here for them.”

Barace Shaw, 45, grew up in the Jefferson Avenue neighborhood but now lives in Williamsville. His mother still lives in the community.

"Somebody from my family has lived in this neighborhood since 1959," Shaw said from inside Premier Cigars.

"The main thing that I keep coming back to is that it could have been me. That could have been my mother. I'm in that grocery store at least four to five times a week. The part that I can't wrap my mind around is that someone would go that far, not to just harm other human beings, but to take their lives," Shaw added. 

Norman Tisdale, 69, of Masten Avenue, is a lifelong resident of the community served by the Tops since it opened in 2003. He described the store as an oasis for the community and not just a regular store.

"This past week has been miserable, I mean, filled with emotions," said Tisdale, who added that the traumatic nature of the mass shooting caused him to avoid traveling to the area around the supermarket since the tragedy.  

"I attended a friend's funeral today, the closest person that I knew in the tragedy," he said, referring to Heyward Patterson, 68, who was working as a driver, a job he had done for years, picking up shoppers and driving them home, when he was killed in Saturday's shooting.

Tisdale said he had known Patterson, who served as a deacon at his church, since they were both young men in the 1970s.

"What really got my emotions is, we had it rough back then. We were young, wilding and whatnot. Thirty years down the road, I go to church, and who do I see? I see him at the door, and it was so amazing," Tisdale recalled. "He was just an usher then. He opened up the door, and I said, 'Man, what you doing here?' And he said, 'Man, you see what I'm doing.' "

"Last night is when I found out it was him. I was ruined, couldn't sleep, man, for the simple reason that how he turned his life around and then to be taken out like that," Tisdale said.

Jamie Lash, 61, of Buffalo, said the Tops market was special and will still be special. She easily recalled when Tops came into the neighborhood at the behest of city officials and legislators who cited a dire need for a supermarket in the neighborhood.

“That was a test store, and we excelled,” Lash said. “We used to win awards for the best chicken. The store was clean and friendly and we were excelling. And because we are living as individuals in this neighborhood and holding our own, now a white supremacist has got to come stop us? No. We come into our own right and this is our store.”

Mara said she made her pilgrimage to "thank the agencies that are providing food and showing the community they care.”

But she also knows that the attention paid to the community will begin to wane soon.

“My concern is what will happen after all the cameras leave," she said. "How will we help this community a month from now?”