Tops market to reopen in Buffalo, two months after racist massacre

Also Thursday, a federal grand jury in the Western District of New York returned a 27-count indictment against the alleged gunman in the massacre, who was charged last month with hate crimes and a gun violation and could face the death penalty for the weapons charge.

The accused shooter, Payton Gendron, 19, separately has been charged in state court with hate-motivated domestic terrorism, first-degree murder and other counts. He is being held without bail and faces a maximum penalty of life without the possibility of parole in the state-level case. His lawyers in the federal case indicated last week that they may pursue a psychiatric defense.

Buffalo’s East Side was a food desert. The shooting made things worse.

The Tops store has undergone a hasty renovation since FBI agents and local law enforcement cleared up a sprawling crime scene there. The neighborhood is still reeling from the May 14 mass shooting, one of a trio this spring and summer that have stunned a gun violence-battered country.

Tops was a desperately-needed market in what was considered a food desert on the city’s East Side. The grocery chain and local officials pledged to reopen the store as soon as possible, saying they recognized the need the area had for residents to have healthy food options.

Opponents of the reopening say they would prefer to preserve the site as a memorial to those who were shot. A Change.org petition pushing to keep the Tops store closed had 77 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.

“Many in our community DO NOT ever want to step foot inside of that place,” wrote the petition’s organizer, Jerome R. Wright. “More importantly, most have expressed a desire to have a memorial constructed on that site for the community to visit and pay their respects to the murdered, the injured, and the traumatized.”

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The alleged gunman is accused of driving three hours to Buffalo from his Binghamton, N.Y.-area home to target a place where Black people convene. A chilling recording live-streamed to followers during the mass shooting appears to depict the gunman leaving his vehicle in the Tops parking lot and walking into the store, where he began spraying gunfire from a Bushmaster XM-15 semiautomatic rifle.

Michelle Spight, who lost two of her relatives to the Tops shooting, said she believes the site should have been turned into a memorial and that officials should have scouted other options for community grocery stores.

“They never got the input from the families with regard to how they felt about the store reopening,” said Spight, who is mourning the loss of her 77-year-old aunt, Pearl Young, on one side of her family, and her cousin, Margus D. Morrison, 52, on the other side.

Relatives of victims that she’s talked to — including members of her own family — are on both sides of the issue, Spight said. Some think it is important to reopen the store, especially for elderly residents who can’t easily travel elsewhere. Others think it’s an insult.

Tops spokeswoman Kathleen Sautter said in an email that relatives “were communicated with” about the decision to reopen. She did not disclose details.