Buffalo Shooting Victims Include Heroic Security Guard, Local Deacon

BUFFALO, NY — A heroic security guard, a religious leader, and a gun-control advocate were among the 10 people killed over the weekend in a racially motivated attack on a Buffalo supermarket, according to multiple reports.

A total of 13 people, 11 of whom were Black, were shot Saturday at the Tops Friendly Market located 3 miles north of downtown Buffalo in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

Retired police officer and security guard Aaron Salter, 55, died after trying to protect shoppers during the onslaught, repeatedly firing at the gunman and hitting his armor-plated vest at least once, according to The Associated Press.

“There could have been more victims if not for his actions,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday, the AP reported.

Also killed were Andre Mackneil, 53, of Auburn, who was picking up a birthday cake for his 3-year-old son, according to the New York Times, and 67-year-old Heyward Patterson, a deacon at a local church who gave rides to shoppers who needed help with their bags, according to the Associated Press.

Ruth Whitfield, 86, had just made her daily visit to her husband at a nursing home before she died grocery shopping, the Associated Press reported, adding her son described her as a deeply religious woman.

Also killed shopping was 77-year-old Pearly Young, who ran a food pantry in the area for 25 years, according to WGRZ. Victim Katherine Massey, 72, was a gun control advocate, the New York Times reported, while Celestine Chaney, 65, who was killed shopping for strawberries to make shortcakes, had survived cancer and was a grandmother to six and a great-grandmother to one, according to WGRZ.

Other victims included the youngest to be killed, 32-year-old Roberta Drury, who had just moved back home with her mother, according to the Associated Press; 52-year-old Margus Morrison, of Buffalo; and Geraldine Talley, 62, also of Buffalo, WGRZ reported.

Of the three victims who were injured, two have been released from the hospital: Zaire Goodman, the 20-year-old son of a staffer for state Sen. Tim Kennedy, and a 50-year-old from Tonawanda, WGRZ reported, adding a 55-year-old from Lackawanna was still hospitalized.

The gunman has been identified as 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who is white and traveled three hours from Conklin to commit the crime, authorities have said. A 180-page manifesto detailing the attack espoused "replacement theory," a white supremacist belief that non-whites will eventually replace white people because they have higher birth rates, officials told ABC News. Gendron previously threatened a mass shooting at his high school, according to the Associated Press.