Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - WBEN has obtained previously unreleased details about an incident involving a gun at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue in East Buffalo that led to two arrests.
The incident happened 10 days ago on Tuesday, June 17.
Buffalo police say two men, Avello Pena and Ronnie Midgett, were spotted on the store's surveillance system passing a gun back-and-forth inside the store. Pena and Midgett eventually left the store.
While driving away from the store, Pena, who was driving the suspects' vehicle, flashed a gun at a bystander. The bystander reported this to nearby officers, who were responding to an unrelated incident.
Pena and Midgett were pulled over a short time later at E. Utica and Roehrer. Police say Pena refused to cooperate when asked to get out of the vehicle. He had to be taken to the ground and handcuffed.
Officers were eventually able to walk Pena to their police car, though Pena turned violent and bit one of the officers on the pinkie, causing the officer to bleed.
Two loaded 9mm ghost guns were recovered from the vehicle, while three additional loaded magazines were also recovered.
Ellicott District Councilwoman and Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope was shocked to hear about the incident, as it was only just brought to her attention a couple days ago.
"How these two individuals could walk in with it is disgusting, and the fact that they pointed it at two different people. It's disgusting. It's terrifying," said Halton-Pope in an interview with WBEN. "I don't know the circumstances that surround the issue, what brought them there? I don't know if they was a targeted or a planned attack on Tops. It's my understanding that that's not what's considered right now. I just have more questions than actually I have answers, to be honest."
One of the questions Halton-Pope has is why this incident appeared to be kept away from the public for as long as it did. She says, though, when speaking to District C Police Chief Thelma Jones about the incident, she wasn't aware of it in real time either, as she was not at work at the time.
Another question Halton-Pope has is how security may have missed these two individuals sneaking a gun into the store.
"Do I believe things could be missed? Yes. I actually shop there, I speak to security every single time I walk in. I'm not going to say they're doing a horrible job, I just don't have enough of the facts. I haven't seen the surveillance footage, and so I have no idea how this even happened. How did they bring it in?" Halton-Pope said. "I do believe that Tops and its leadership really tried to work very hard to keep the community safe. It's also my understanding that this wasn't a targeted attack specifically for Tops, but I don't have enough of the details surrounding what happened in the first place at all."
Pena has been charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, second degree menacing, third degree assault, resisting arrest and second degree obstructing governmental administration.
Midgett faces two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
The Tops location where this incident occurred is the same store that was targeted by a racist mass shooter on May 14, 2022, where 10 Black people were killed and three others were injured.
While Halton-Pope says she and others should not be afraid to continue shopping at Tops, she wants the community to be mindful of surroundings at all times.
"To the constituents in my district, especially those of us who still internally, and some of us externally, deal with the tragedy of 5/14 every day, stay vigilant and try to show love to one another," she said. "I don't know enough about how we got to this point that these two individuals were even able to get into Tops with weapons. I don't know how they were able to pull a weapon out on somebody like they did. The police, apparently, when they were called, they showed up pretty quickly. But the fact is, we could have lost lives that day, that it happened on the 17th, two days before Juneteenth. So to my constituents, I'm going to stay on it, and I will hold those accountable who need to be. But we still have to stand together, no matter what."