BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — President Biden met with family members Tuesday of all 10 victims of the mass shooting at the Tops Market on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo.
The meeting took place at the Delavan-Grider Community Center. President Biden says he and the First Lady came to Buffalo to stand with the community and to grieve as one with the families.
“Evil will not win. I promise you. Hate will not prevail and white supremacy will not have the last word,” declared President Biden.
Biden names each shooting victim saying he understands from his own experiences the profound loss they’re feeling adding that in time he hopes the pain will fade with happy memories remaining.
“Going to bring a smile to your lip before it brings a tear to your eye,” Biden reflected.
But Biden called the murders in Buffalo racist and act of terrorism.
“White supremacy is a poison. It's a poison — it really is,” President Biden stated. “We need to say as clearly and force as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America.”
Family members, like Wayne Jones who lost his mother Celestine Chaney, say everyone has to stop white supremacy.
“He can't do nothing without us. It's the people. We as people have to change. We have to not read what you see on the internet and think what you see on the internet as true,” replied Jones.
Chaney's two granddaughters. Kayla Jones and Charon Reed, both 24, said they were extremely happy the president came to Buffalo.
“Just the encounter that we did have with him — it was just really like he knew us or something,” described Jones.
“He was just kind. He was compassionate and he talked to us,” Reed reflected.
Dee Davis, Chaney's sister-in-law, says meeting with the President and First Lady was very touching.
“He made us feel like family. He didn't act like don't touch me — he was presentable, he came and I really felt the sincerity — that something's going to be done,” Davis remarked.
The president says assault weapons, like the one used to kill the ten Buffalo residents must be taken off the streets.
Governor Kathy Hochul.
Governor Kathy Hochul says that must be a nationwide priority. Hochul told reporters when the ban on assault weapons expired, is when the mass shooting started to occur across the country.
“We need to say they can not exist. I can have the toughest laws in America and the State of New York. You can ride a bicycle over to Pennsylvania and it's so close and that's where you can mass the weapons and that's what was used here,” Governor Hochul responded.
Families that 7 News spoke with are begging for better gun control and a ban on assault weapons. The young woman say their grandmother went to Tops Saturday to buy strawberries losing her life.
