WEST SENECA, N.Y. (WBEN) - The controversy over Forest Lawn's handling of the 215 graves at St. Matthew's Cemetery has another layer to it after attorney Barry Covert, who represents about 70 families affected by the grave removal, said the vast majority of those interred at Garden of Good Shepherd and all of his clients are minorities.
"There certainly seems to be a racial component when 70 out of 70 clients are African American and the only other person that's not African American spoke in court and she's of Hispanic background," Covert said.
When asked to clarify, Covert claimed that the funeral director and cemeteries didn't give his client any options over where they were buried.
"They were just simply steered in this direction and nobody knew that this was a segregated area or African Americans only and now one Hispanic until all the bodies were removed," he added. "All of the sudden, they all look around at each other during the meeting and say 'What's wrong with this picture? There's nobody white here.'."
Covert said most of his clients that are buried at the Garden of Good Shepherd are not by their loved ones. He predicts about 20 out of 70 clients have family members buried near each other.
Reverend Kinzer Pointer of Agape Fellowship Baptist Church in Buffalo said he isn't sure if there's any merit to the race argument.
"It's probably unwarranted," Pointer said. "But I don't know what Mr. Covert knows. I just know, historically, how cemeteries operate. I'm just skeptical."
Pointer said he'd like to see exactly how it's a racial issue.
Forest Lawn provided the following statement to WBEN about the interment process:
When someone is brought to a Forest Lawn Group cemetery for interment, the race/ethnicity of the decedent is not shared with us, nor do we ask for that information when we inter someone in any of our cemeteries. And of course, anyone who wishes to entrust us with the perpetual care of a loved one is absolutely free to inter their loved one in any section of the cemetery they choose. How/why people make their purchase decisions is clearly a personal choice.
I would also add that in most cases, when the grave is being purchased at the time of a death (“at need”) the family’s funeral director will select a grave their behalf. Again, we’re not privy to how that decision is made - it’s between the family and their funeral director.
Forest Lawn will continue to seek formal approval to the grave removal in their next court appearance on July 29.
