Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It has been one month since the tragic and deadly mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo's East Side community that left 10 Black people dead and three others wounded at the hands of a suspected 18-year-old White supremacist from more than three hours out of town.
The community held a memorial at the Tops site on Jefferson Avenue on Tuesday, where a number of people spoke on the shooting one month later, and how the community continues to heal from the hateful act of violence that took place. This included a number of local law enforcement officials, local elected officials, and some of the people directly affected by the mass shooting.
In addition, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown recognized the first responders who were among the first on site at the Tops after the first 9-1-1 call was placed on that Saturday, May 14.
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Among those speaking on Tuesday was one of the survivors of the attack in the store at the time of the shooting, Fragrance Harris Stanfield. Her and her daughter were both working at the Jefferson Avenue location when the shooter opened fire just before 2:30 p.m. ET.
For both Harris Stanfield and her daughter, Yahnia Brown-McReynolds, they were able to escape and walk away safe and relatively unscathed. Unfortunately for 10 others on that day, they lost their lives too soon.
"It feels good to be up here with the families of those who we lost. They are dear to us, and I'm happy to be here with the community," said Harris Stanfield during Tuesday's memorial. "This is my community, as well. I work in this community, I live in this community, I've been organizing and been active in this community for many years.
"I am grateful to be able to stand here and address this group of individuals, because you're here to listen to what we have to say about what happened to us. You're here to listen about how we're going to move forward. We want to make sure that we're all working together to move forward as a unified voice for this community, and make sure that everyone is represented in that unified voice."
As the East Side community continues to battle back from what happened one month ago, work is already underway with revamping and reconstructing the Tops building on Jefferson Avenue. Some of the signs outside of the building have already been taken down, including the "TOPS" letters over top of the entrance, to make way for remodeling and a new paint job for the complex.
It was last week that President and COO of Tops Friendly Markets, John Persons, said the Jefferson Avenue location is expected to re-open for the East Side community some time in late July. During his time at the microphone on Tuesday, Persons did not provide any update on a timeline for re-opening the store.
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With plans underway to get the Jefferson Avenue site re-opened for the community, Harris Stanfield knows there's no certainty as to what the capacity will be for people flocking back to that site going forward. However, for herself, she has one goal in mind: Getting back to work.
"My goal is to return to my home, Tops Markets right here on Jefferson Avenue," Harris Stanfield said. "I am excited about the re-opening. I am not sure how I will feel walking in there, or how any of the rest of us will feel, but I want you to know that we are here. We are a family at Tops. We are a family like anybody's blood-related family. We love each other, we support each other, we talk to each other, we work with each other."
While the debate about re-opening the store has been a talking point for several weeks now, Harris Stanfield understands just how important it is to get the supermarket back up and running.
"We do need our community Tops. This is the only major chain grocery store in the community, I think that should be noted for Tops," she said following Tuesday's memorial. "I know it was a lot of work for the community, and some of the members of the 'Buffalo 10' were actually instrumental in getting this Tops here. We still have managers in the building who have been here since the Tops started and was open, so I think we should just make sure that we have a more instrumental representation in the re-opening."
Harris Stanfield believes the re-opening should be treated like when the community first got the store back in the early 2000s. She wants to make sure the community has a say and has a seat at that table to make sure everyone is talking to each other to see what the neighborhood's needs are.
At the same point, it's important for Harris Stanfield that the process to get the store re-opened is not rushed. However, with the work currently underway, she believes Tops is working at a good pace to get everything together to make sure it's going to look and feel different.
"It's still in the same spot, it's still the same building, but we want to be able to go back in and not feel like the band aid is being ripped off of us," Harris Stanfield said. "But we want to see our regulars, we want to see our family members, our Tops associates. We want to see everybody again. We want to be able to hug everybody and talk to everyone. We want to get back to that communal aspect of what we have here as a community."
In addition, Harris Stanfield understands the impacts of the Tops being closed for the East Side community. She says it can't be sugarcoated with the fact that what the neighborhood is experiencing is a "food desert", and getting the supermarket back open will only be beneficial.
"I think this is the only Tops within about four miles of here, when most of the Tops or any other grocery store are about two miles away from each other," Harris Stafield said. "It's important that we have this for that reason as well, but I think we need to work on making sure that it doesn't happen that we have just one store, where we have available fresh fruits and vegetables and access to everything. So let's just work on making things not so destitute."
Harris Stanfield is definitely open to the idea of having more options available for the people of the East Side community, whether it's a major chain store or a smaller outfit.
Over the past month, Harris Stanfield has seen the outpouring of support from many in the community, as well as other groups and agencies to help Buffalo's East Side try to heal and breathe easier during these weeks of troublesome times. She says she's been very grateful of the continued support from a number of those groups serving the community, whether it'd be feeding people, providing mental health services, or just being responsive in any way they can.
Meanwhile, Tops has partnered with the National Compassion Fund to create the "Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund" to directly benefit those impacted by the shooting. All of the funds raised through the campaign will go to the survivors of the event, including the families of the victims, the people that were physically injured and the people who were emotionally and physically injured on site, as well.
As of Tuesday, the fund was closing in on the $3 million mark, with it extending well into the summer months.
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While Harris Stanfield says one of the family members are very grateful and happy with what's going forth with the Survivors Fund, she has yet to speak to anyone from the fund as a survivor. However, that has also been the case with other survivors of this incident, and she's hoping to change that in some way.
"We've kind of been left out of that conversation. So I think, just like the other agencies have acknowledged us and spoken with us, I think they should," she said. "I would feel more comfortable with them if they were more transparent and in a conversation with us as well, because we are a part of this and we weren't directly impacted. I don't know if people feel like it's directly impacted.
"I know I was minor. The hurt that I felt physically was minor. I was just bruised and limping for a few days, but that's nothing. That's nothing compared to what happened to other people, and I understand it. But this isn't a competition about who's more hurt or who's not. It's just who was directly impacted, and can we all be in in that conversation."
Leading up to Tuesday's memorial, Harris Stanfield and her family have felt a heavy feeling as they approached the one month anniversary of the shooting. However, she still feels it's important to be out in the community doing all she can to try and spread some love.
As for what May 14, 2022 will mean to her going forward, it was a question that she admitted she hasn't even thought about yet.
"I've been grateful for my life all these these days, but I think I change the way I answer the question, like how I'm doing. I'm grateful to be alive," Harris Stanfield said. "It's like, I was grateful before, but I'm more grateful to be alive just because I could have died that day."
More of our conversation with Harris Stanfield is available in the player below: