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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We haven't gotten to say the names on this show yet of the people killed in the Buffalo supermarket massacre. Indulge me as I do that now, so we don't treat them as a nameless, faceless group or mass. Each one is a person who was lost to their family and other loved ones in their communities.

They are Roberta Drury of Buffalo age 32, Margus Morrison of Buffalo age 52, Andre Mackneil of Auburn, outside Buffalo age 53, Aaron Salter of Lockport, New York age 55, Geraldine Talley of Buffalo age 62, Celestine Chaney of Buffalo age 65, Heyward Patterson of Buffalo age 67, Katherine Massey of Buffalo age 72.

What a pattern of who goes shopping for their families, or themselves, or maybe just that this was a naturally occurring retirement community in East Buffalo. Pearl Young of Buffalo age 77, Ruth Whitfield of Buffalo age 86, and three people suffered injuries that have been deemed non-life-threatening, but the other three people who were shot deserved to be mentioned too. Zaire Goodman of Buffalo age 20, Jennifer Warrington of Tonawanda New York age 50, and Christopher Braden of Lackawanna age 55.

Now here's one way to look at the racist mass shooting and how to prevent future such murders. It's not only through the lens of the recent rise of extreme racist ideology on the political right, which we've been talking about here and so many other media outlets have been talking about, or the way those hate memes spread like wildfire through social media, or even the poorest gun laws that pour weapons of war like water into our communities around the country.

Maybe through an even broader lens on history and a broad set of protections, including Mental Health Services and community-led violence intervention programs. Because with us now is a community leader in Buffalo, who's advocating for those kinds of things in response and good enough to take some time to join us today, to describe what he's calling for and how the group he works with hopes this tragedy and act of terrorism will inspire a time of new constructive action.

He is Tyrell Ford, lead community organizer with a group called VOICE Buffalo. The first words on their website are faithfully bringing forth justice, a quote from Isaiah 43:3, and let's start there. Tyrell, thanks for coming on for our down-stay listeners and others around the country, outside of the Buffalo area. Welcome to WNYC.

Tyrell Ford: Thank you for having me

Brian Lehrer: First, even though everyone is saying it, and it doesn't solve anything, let me express my condolences for the unthinkable loss for the families involved and for all of East Buffalo and all of Buffalo as communities.

Tyrell Ford: We appreciate that. It has been very difficult, but we're trying to get to a point where we can start the heal, and start to think of what we need to implement next to get our community back to where once was, or even better than it once was.

Brian Lehrer: Even better than it once was, is certainly the goal. Did you know any of the victims personally?

Tyrell Ford: I did not know any of them personally, but I do know through coworkers, colleagues, friends, and family, they are connected with some of the victims.

Brian Lehrer: I read the names. Do you want to say anything about any of them in particular, you don't have to, and certainly don't have to single out any individuals over any other individuals after a time like this, but I've been seeing some of their stories on TV? I'm just curious if there's anybody you want to say anything about?

Tyrell Ford: My heart goes out to all the families, but me being a security guard, is never an easy point to be at the front and center. I commend that officer, going forward to try to stop this madman, and it was needed because he sacrificed himself to minimize the damages.

Brian Lehrer: For people who haven't heard that story of a retired Buffalo police officer who worked for that store as a security guard and was said to be beloved. He tried to shot stop the shooter by shooting him, but one of the shocking things about this Tyrell is I don't have to tell you is that that guy came so armed that he was wearing body armor. The bullet did not pierce through to his body and he was able to continue his rampage. That by itself was shocking to me that somebody would plan it this much, that he came there wearing body armor.

Tyrell Ford: Yes, the fact that he drove past two other major states in New York and chose Buffalo as the heavy dense population of African Americans is baffling. I'm a native of Syracuse. I was [unintelligible 00:05:44] to Buffalo to go to college, and I've been in this community ever since 2004, and I visited that store. I don't drink coffee, but I grab tea from a local, Black-owned coffee shop down the street, and it's devastating what has happened.

Brian Lehrer: People have talked about it, and we'll say it again here. The role of that store in the community, low-income community, largely Black that is, or was even more of a food desert, and it took some community action even to get a supermarket that top supermarket in that community. Yes?

Tyrell Ford: Yes. The nearest store is I believe two to three miles away from it, that tops and there is no other store that folks can go get fresh food and vegetables without transportation and our transportation has been going through a battle of its own where they're trying to cut out certain routes. If you cut out certain routes, folks in the East side won't be able to get to the grocery stores that are outside their community.

That's why that top goes vital to that community, and that's why it was like a meetup spot for folks to grab food, and maybe you see a neighbor at the store and have a good conversation and a good laugh, and all that will be hard to do if that store is to open back up. What should we do for our community is invested in another store, so it won't be such a food desert.

Brian Lehrer: Is that something that would take government action?

Tyrell Ford: That can take government action, that can take our community coming together to talk to some of these corporations, like [unintelligible 00:07:45] all these to invest in our community, so we won't have to rely on one single store to feed a thousand.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have any sense of the economics of the food desert phenomenon? It's like poor people also buy food. That's one thing they buy, even if they can't afford some other things that people in other neighborhoods can afford to buy. Black people buy food like any other people. Why do food deserts develop? Why did that one develop East Buffalo, if you have anything on that?

Tyrell Ford: I don't have anything on that. It's just probably a lack of investment in that community. Like I said, two to three miles is a long way to go, and you need a vehicle to get to the store. Walmart is, I believe five miles outside of this city. It would take three buses maybe to get there if you wanted to go to Walmart at the shop for your food.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, one correction on one of the names that I read Roberta Drury, somebody's telling me, I said Robert Drury and left out that A in Roberta. My apologies and correcting that Roberta Drury of Buffalo age 32, one of the victims. Just so we say the name of that hero security guard who got killed, is that Mr. Salter? Do I have the right person?

Tyrell Ford: Yes. That's Aaron Salter.

Brian Lehrer: Just saying that name. Is there something about that community that so many of those shoppers would've been older adults?

Tyrell Ford: Yes, we are mainly, heavily focused on our elderly. It is a diverse community as far as age range, but mostly our elders shop around that time on Saturdays.

Brian Lehrer: Can you give our listeners a little background on your group, VOICE Buffalo, where you are the lead community

organizer. I see from the website that VOICE Buffalo works on violence prevention at the community level, in sentencing reform and you have a faith leader's caucus that it says brings together Christian, Muslim, agnostic, spiritualist, and Jewish voices for monthly meetings. Tell us more about VOICE Buffalo and your role in the community before this.

Tyrell Ford: We are a restorative justice organization. We focus on leadership development, racial equity, and racial justice. We try to reform the mass incarceration system. We look for individuals directly impacted, legal system impacted, and we want to bring about change because in our community we have folks that are directly impacted who can't find jobs, which leads to other things like the rising crime and poverty.

We want to make sure that we are fighting for them through policy change such as a

clean slate which will give somebody formally incarcerated the opportunity at better job and better housing in our community. That is one thing we advocate strongly for.

Brian Lehrer: I see from your website that the work of VOICE Buffalo is tied now, or people from VOICE Buffalo are calling to double down on the kinds of work that you do usually in response to this terrorist attack. Let me ask you about that because obviously, structural racism affects the whole community every day, but this kind of racist mass killing is something much rarer and much more explicit and intentional.

Is there a relationship between the ongoing work against the conditions that lead to poverty and mass incarceration and the work to prevent atrocities like the shooting at tops on Saturday that you see?

Tyrell Ford: We face obstacles every day and challenges to what we're trying to do to better our community and better the general economic impact that these policy changes will bring. We are just tired of facing these obstacles as Black America. We feel like there's a war on our Black and brown bodies, and we need to be voiceful in our efforts to change things that are impacting us daily.

This madman came to Buffalo. There's no way you can prepare for that. There's no way you can heal from that either because that's going to be a lifelong trauma, even though you weren't directly in the store, there's going to be trauma that overflows throughout the community.

Brian Lehrer: Indeed and listeners, we can take some phone calls on anything regarding the Buffalo shooting or your questions for Tyrell Ford lead community organizer from VOICE Buffalo, or on the intersection of this kind of explicit racism and the more structural kinds that may not be motivated by hate or conspiracy theories in this way, but hold more people down and are politically hard to change or anything related. 212-433 WNYC 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

There was a tweeter who corrected my pronunciation of one of the names. We're watching your tweets go by Tyrell Ford, President Biden is about to land in Buffalo, or maybe he's landing right now, but sometime shortly, and going to speak around one O'clock and meet with people there. I see the executive director of your group is one of the people in the Buffalo contingent meeting him. Of course, a visit by the president by itself doesn't change anything. Does it feel meaningful to you in any way that he's coming?

Tyrell Ford: No. Unless he plans to implement some stricter reforms around gun laws. We understand the right to bear arms, but when we have mad mans coming into cities, shooting up innocent people, it just sends shock waves through our nation. We have to start a plan to combat those efforts. We can no longer just let these continue to happen annually if we are not willing to make change.

I encourage President Biden to make change and enact something that is stricter on gun laws and help people understand that we need training. People who don't have training should not be able to carry, it should be annual training. I'm not saying take away all guns, but enact some sort of annual training or mental health fitness test to

make sure folks are able to carry these guns correctly.

Brian Lehrer: I hear you. I'm looking at a story on the website of Channel 2 Television in Buffalo from earlier this month that you were quoted in just a week before the shooting that starts by saying, "When the Kensington expressway was built, there was little concern about the impact it would have on the people living on the east side of Buffalo, a predominantly African American neighborhood.

Its construction created an equity issue, which on Friday that's Friday, 10 days ago, state and local leaders pledged would be righted. Tyrell you know we have things like that in New York City too, with the cross Bronx expressway, isolating several communities and some other examples. Can you talk about the Buffalo version of that for listeners who don't know?

Tyrell Ford: It was transplanted right through the heart of the east side. It took out one of the biggest park we have, which is the Olmsted Park. It was just the easier way for folk coming from the suburbs to find a quicker route to go into the city. It just took out city blocks of quality housing, which we have the oldest housing stock in America and our house infrastructure needs to be better. With that potentially going away, we may be able to rebuild housing on those blocks that will come back.

Brian Lehrer: What was that pledge by state and local leaders about writing those wrongs? Is it a meaningful pledge in terms of the impact it can have?

Tyrell Ford: We see I'm going to give you another one in Syracuse you have the [unintelligible 00:17:20] that was transported through the south side of Syracuse and it was like a disconnect from the university. You have these highways going through predominantly Black areas. You have the emissions run off that are polluting our streets and causing sickness just because folks wanted to get from point A to point B quicker and is like a grand gesture, but it is like meaningless because the effects have already been inherited for generations.

Folks have cancer just from breathing in the toxic fuel from vehicles. The quality of air has suffered. When Kathy Hochul decided to bring all these highways to a close it was great, but the damage is already done and our community will need this to reinvest in itself, but the damage has already been done.

Brian Lehrer: Let me play a clip of Governor Hochul circling back to the gun issue that you raised. This is the governor speaking on Buffalo's Kiss 98.5 radio yesterday morning about the shooter and threats that he made in high school with respect to his later ability to purchase the weapon that he purchased. Listen.

Governor Hochul: I've asked for the investigation of exactly what transpired there, but there's nothing that flagged that he wouldn't be able to from that encounter at the time be able to go into a store and purchase a gun.

Brian Lehrer: Is that the kind of thing you were referring to before about tightening the gun laws?

Tyrell Ford: Yes because if he wasn't able to, he made a threat. If he was able to buy a gun after he made that threat it should have never happened, and to be able to go to another state and carry a different type of gun back across states should have never happened. If we had stricter laws that combat stuff like this, we wouldn't be sitting here today.

Brian Lehrer: Juliet in Newark. You're on WNYC with Tyrell Ford from Buffalo. Hello, Juliet.

Juliet: Yes, Brian. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity. I want to say I

call to encourage my brother. I want you to know that young man, what he did. We are experiencing-- this is spiritual warfare. This is time that we ought to pray and continue to pray and call on the name of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, because he tell us in the 46th, he say he is the very present help. He's our refuge and the very present help in the time of trouble.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of boldness calling upon his name, this is time to pray. I will just say this to you. When I moved from New York to Newark and I moved to the neighborhood, when my son came to see the house I bought, he said to me, "Ma, you have a nice house." He said, "But do you know you in the hood?"

I said to him, I said, "God is in the hood too." I started praying for my neighborhood. Let me tell you something. They had a shooting on the very street I live on. The bullet went through my garage door. The SUV was in the garage, but God did not allow the bullet to hit the windshield. We were able to pick up the bullet where it ricocheted. I say all of this to say that, this is praying time. I'm praying for my brothers and sisters in Buffalo, but they also have to pray.

God hears and he answers prayer. Be encouraged and continue to keep the good fight because the battle doesn't belong to us. It belongs to our God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Remember Jesus tell us-- he say, "I am the way, I am the truth and I am the life." He sees and He hears and he knows that the people of Buffalo is hurting, but this is the time that we are to fall on our knees and cry out to him. He will answer.

Brian Lehrer: Julia. Thank you so much for your call. I appreciate it. Your group Tyrell, VOICE Buffalo is among other things, a faith-based group, right? Your executive director is minister, Reverend [unintelligible 00:22:19] the one who's going to meet with President Biden. The first words on your website, like I said in the introduction are "Faithfully bringing forth justice," a quote from Isaiah.

It must be hard to-- I don't know your spiritual background or if you're involved with that aspect of the group, but it must be hard to be a believer when God allows something like this to happen. What's the faith aspect of your group and the response on that level to this?

Tyrell Ford: One, you can never question God's motive or judgment. He is the focus of our existence. If we question why each time, we're questioning him and his beliefs. We have to stay fast and stay strong and knowing that he will comfort us in our time

in need. We have to continue to put our trust in him in love first, because that is what's going to get us through these days by leading with love.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Tyrell Ford, from Buffalo Voices, and more of your call, stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Tyrell Ford, lead community organizer for the community group in Buffalo called VOICES Buffalo and-- called VOICE Buffalo, I'm sorry, VOICE Buffalo and voices is an acronym for something, right. Am I right? The V-O-I-C-E stand for something?

Tyrell Ford: No, it was just voice.

Brian Lehrer: It's just for voice, for having a voice and picking up right where we left off with that caller in your response before the break, I'm going to read part of the statement from VOICE Buffalo that we got as a press release that led us to you. It said, "Pray for us, and then take action." Join us in our call for fully-funded mental health and healing services for Buffalo's Black community, as well as victims of crime funds for impacted families.

Demand Governor Hochul invest in community-led violence prevention strategies. Can we take a couple of those Tyrell, "Join us in our call for fully-funded mental health and healing services for Buffalo's Black community, as well as victims of crime, funds for impacted families." What would that look like if you get your way from the Governor and the state?

Tyrell Ford: It would mean a lot, especially to the Black and brown community. We often don't face our traumas, especially in the face of a lot of things that we face on a daily basis. Police stops, mass shootings, taking a job in our neighborhoods. It is like the war on Black and brown bodies. We need to invest in trauma-informed care.

Mental health is a must, and we need crime-violent interventions throughout the nation. Not just here in Buffalo, but the state, the nation, because our communities are under attack and we need to stand up and voice our disconcert of how our communities are being treated.

Brian Lehrer: The next paragraph on that release says, Black and brown communities are in a state of emergency for anyone who is serious about ending racism in this country. It's time to put in the work to dismantle machineries of hate and invest in systems that will actually keep us safe. Anything you want to single out near the top of the list of what those might be?

Tyrell Ford: We are about to launch what is called the Black census and that will give Black and brown community members the opportunity to speak along what changes they want to see in their community and it's [unintelligible 00:26:54] is intended for Black and brown folks, because sometimes we don't get what we need from the regular census. It is the time to speak up and be active in your communities,

and no longer just sitting idly by watching on TV every couple of months or weeks or years of a tragic situation that has occurred.

Brian Lehrer: Mike in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hello. Thank you for having me on. We're talking a lot about the community of Buffalo, but I lived in Upstate New York for five years, and I know everyone thinks of the Northeast as progressive, but I think we have to address the issue of intransigent, ignorant behavior in rural Upstate New York and the Northeast. When I lived in Upstate New York in 1989, I was part of a group that were trying to get past legislation to allow gays to have access to hotels and restaurants without restriction.

People from rural Tompkins County came to the county seat to argue that, if these laws passed, everyone would get AIDS and God's wrath would be down upon the people. I hear this all the time and whenever I've traveled through Upstate New York, I find that the scary thing is the neighborhoods of rural areas filled with ignorance and hostility. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. 1989 was a long time ago and that moment in the AIDS epidemic, but certainly now we also see restrictions popping up all over the place. Yesterday we talked about on the show, all the school board elections that are happening around communities in New York State today, and how culture war issues are popping up in school board elections.

We know the things that we may think of as Ron DeSantis' Florida, but are also being discussed by some candidates and some of these school board elections around New York state, who see education that includes acknowledgment of gay parent couples and things like that, as some form of grooming or however they want to put it in the 21st-century version. Tyrell, I also don't want to paint with too broad a brush about rural America. It's easy for us living in New York City or living in Buffalo to look down our noses at rural people, but this shooter did come from Conklin New York, which is a long way from Buffalo. I don't know anything about Conklin

New York. Do you, or any of the community context of the shooter's origins?

Tyrell Ford: I lived in Syracuse, all the way until I got to college and I know Conklin is about 90 miles outside of Syracuse and it is a rural town where you see neighbors at least, I want to say a mile apart. It is in the [unintelligible 00:30:30] Binghamton area. It is right next to Scranton, Pennsylvania as well, so that's my knowledge of it. I haven't visited there often, but it is a small world town.

Brian Lehrer: Tabia in East Setauket, you're on WNYC with Tyrell Ford from VOICE Buffalo. Hi, Tabia.

Tabia: Hi, Brian, how are you? Tyrell has everything.

Tyrell Ford: Oh-

Brian Lehrer: Okay. Under the circumstances, we can say.

Tabia: First, condolences to the families of the lost ones. It's a tragic loss for New York and the entire country, and my condolences to the City of Buffalo which I consider as one of, strategic cities knowing where it sits and I feel like it consistently gets neglected. It's unfortunate that the only time I hear about it's like this.

My question was, I've been noticing a trend when it comes to shootings similar to what has happened in Buffalo, when you have a shooter of European descent, they get to see another day, they are apprehended. Sometimes they're given McDonald's on their ride to the police station and they're given a trial-

Brian Lehrer: That was the Kyle Rittenhouse case. Go ahead.

Tabia: They're given a trial. It's like a cruise ride for them compared that to a shooter of non-European descent in the case of-- There was a Muslim shooter, actually non-shooter who went to a synagogue I believe in Pennsylvania. Didn't shoot anybody, reasoned with everyone gave the-- Told them what he was there for, what he standing for.

Then after everybody leaving the place [chuckles] and the police come and shoot the guy basically murdering him. My question was, what is police tactics? What is, do we have a plan for people like this type of shooting, and that is basically across the board for everybody. I just had a question for the law enforcement because I'm seeing inconsistencies when it comes to shooters and how they get to see another day.

Brian Lehrer: Tabia thank you for that call and thank you for expressing that concern. Tyrell, I don't know if this is in your [unintelligible 00:33:39] work and the work you do for VOICE Buffalo, but certainly, we've heard this kind of thing before about how it seems like white shooters are more likely to be taken alive than non-white shooters.

Tyrell Ford: That's absolutely true and it shouldn't be that way. If you have a person shooting 13 people and has no scratches on him and he's been treated to McDonald's, that sends a message that they care more about the fair complexion than the dark complexion. That says a lot about our police in America. I don't want to say here, attack police in America because they're all not bad, but they're also showing favoritism a little bit and showing who they're more accustomed to not shoot than to shoot.

Black people are tired of having this battle with police like, "Yes, don't treat us fairly when it comes to the stuff in our community, but a white person was to get arrested for the same crime and the same actions, he gets McDonald's, Wendy's whatever he wants." It's like a luxury stay. That just sends a shocking message to Black and brown folks is we can barely trust the people that are here to protect and serve. Now we have to watch out for mass shooters and some bad cops.

Brian Lehrer: A couple of tweets coming in before we ran out of time. Interesting after the caller who had said he lived in Upstate New York and some of the regressive views that he found up there, two different people have written in to say

that they see many Confederate flags in Upstate New York. Interesting that comes from two different people. There are other tweets coming in as well, but those are two I thought that I would single out because they came from two different people.

Again, not to slander whole communities, but just to say as the caller did, we can't just make a blanket statement that this is the progressive Northeast too. There may be community contexts and cultural contexts going on pretty close to home if you live in New York City or if you live in Buffalo, that might be surprising.

Last thing, Tyrell, is there anything that our listeners can do as individuals if they want to help support East Buffalo. The larger cause, I think a lot of the emotion that people are feeling, one of the emotions that people are feeling right now is this extreme frustration and not helplessness or hopelessness. I think that would be too strong, but maybe in that direction.

Because here is another of these events yet again and here come the same old conversations about gun laws, about anti-racism. Yet we know there's going to be another one at some point and another one after that. The politicians are going to say a lot of nice things, then other politicians are going to block some meaningful change. What can our listeners who want to help, but don't know what to do, do.

Tyrell Ford: They can visit our Facebook page @VoiceBuffalo, that is all our handles for our social medias. They can donate. We are heavily trying to get food to the community that has lost their only grocery store. Would it be in the midterm election, we need to make sure our voices are being heard and send shock waves to these politicians that are coming to Buffalo to use this as a prompt to grandstand for this upcoming term election. It shouldn't be that way.

Our community needs to heal and they don't need all these cameras, but we welcome these cameras to point out that we need our politicians to start acting in our favor instead of acting in their favor or the big business dollars that they get for each campaign that they run. I'm a big proponent of, voicing your vote, vote. We need our listeners to understand that if we're not voting, we're complicit in these acts that continue to perpetrate our neighborhoods.

Brian Lehrer: Tyrell Ford, Lead Community of Organizer for VOICE Buffalo. Thank you for taking some time to talk to an out-of-town show. We really appreciate it with all that you must be going through and that must be going on up there today. Thanks very much.

Tyrell Ford: Thank you for having me.

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