City Year statement on the Buffalo shootings

We are running out of ways to express our rage, sorrow, devastation and horror at the relentless cycle of violence visited upon Black people in America.

Again, racism and racial hatred, domestic terrorism and gun violence have stricken a community where City Year AmeriCorps members serve students and schools, shattering families, neighborhoods and our own sense of safety and belonging in this country.

This weekend, it was Buffalo, when a white gunman who espoused white supremacy ideology shot 13 people in a supermarket, 11 of whom were Black. As of now, 10 of the victims have died of their injuries.

Today, we are remembering the victims and their families. Aaron Salter, Ruth Whitfield, Pearly Young, Katherine Massey, Deacon Heyward Patterson, Celestine Chaney, Roberta Drury, Andre Mackneil, Geraldine Talley and Margus D. Morrison. Three others were injured but have been released from the hospital: Zaire Goodman, Jennifer Warrington and Christopher Braden.

We’ll be holding their families and friends in our hearts.

We know the tragic events in Buffalo are having an impact on our entire community, especially corps and staff serving in Buffalo as well as our precious students who live, play and learn there.

We will be offering support to City Year Buffalo and to our AmeriCorps members and staff in the coming hours and days. Our community is united in our abhorrence of racially motivated violence and our commitment to working with others to create a more just, equitable, secure, proudly diverse country for us to all live in.