Brady Center now assisting attorneys in supermarket massacre

The Brady Center is a Washington, D.C., organization that for decades has promoted legislation and policies to halt the epidemic of gun violence in the country.

”The failure to pass national, comprehensive and common-sense gun violence laws continues to leave us vulnerable and has allowed hate-filled individuals to lethally target individuals based on prejudice, bigotry and racism,” Kris Brown, the center’s president, said of the grocery store rampage targeting African Americans.

Complete coverage: 10 killed, 3 wounded in mass shooting at Buffalo supermarket

Payton S. Gendron, 18, of Conklin, N.Y., has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue.  

Terrence M. Connors, the local co-counsel representing the families in civil proceedings, said he sought the assistance of the Brady Center because of his past experience in working with the organization. The Center, he said, helped him in a civil case when he represented a Buffalo high school basketball player whose dreams of playing for a Division 1 college were shattered after he was wounded in a shooting.

As of Thursday, the families of Geraldine Talley, 62, and Ruth Whitfield, 86, who were among the 10 Black victims slain at the Jefferson Avenue supermarket – had retained Connors and attorneys Ben Crump, a national civil rights lawyer, and Ken Abbarno of Cleveland, according to Crump's law firm.

On another front, attorney John V. Elmore said his law firm is representing the family of Andre Mackniel, 53, a restaurant worker who was fatally shot.

Elmore also said that he is looking into suing Remington Arms, which manufactured the Bushmaster XM-15 rifle reportedly used by Gendron. Elmore said he is working with attorney Josh Koskoff, the Connecticut attorney who sued Remington in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that took the lives of 20 children and six educators. A Bushmaster rifle was used in that shooting. Kosskoff settled the lawsuit for $73 million earlier this year.

Crump's firm said in a news release that it is representing Mackniel's family.