Buffalo mayor calls for federal recovery funds for mass shooting

Buffalo, N.Y., Mayor Byron Brown on Tuesday called for federal funds to help his city recover after a mass shooting in May that left 10 Black people dead, with an economist drawing a parallel to government support after natural disasters. 

Brown told lawmakers his city spent $500,000 on unbudgeted funds in the two weeks after the shooting on May 14, including overtime and other services from police, fire and sanitation workers and needed far more to address the trauma and lost income. 

​​”This event has the potential to harm Buffalo’s already economically disadvantaged Black community and further grow inequality. We must do whatever we can to combat this and provide the East Buffalo community with the funding for services such as counseling, educational enrichment and lost wages,” Brown said.

“There should be federal funding to address the economic damage to communities that suffer mass shootings,” he added, testifying before the ​​House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

The suspected shooter — identified as 18-year-old Payton Gendron of Conklin, N.Y. — shot 13 people on May 14, 11 of whom were Black, in a daytime attack on a supermarket.

Abel Brodeur, an economist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, said he has studied mass shootings in the United States between 2003 and 2013 and found that the impacts “are tremendous and permanent.”

“We find a decrease in employment of about 2 percent, a decrease in earnings of 2.5 percent, a decrease in housing prices and also a decrease in the wages, potentially due to a decrease in productivity,” Brodeur said.

The supermarket where the attack happened reopened last week after 52 days, but Brown said the closing led to lost jobs, residents working to find alternate food and resources and a generation of residents impacted by the shooting, including those who will join the workforce in the future. That’s in addition to the emotional loss.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) asked Brown whether he thought it was “fair”  that gun companies profit while communities “pay such a steep price.”

“The financial consequences are devastating to communities, and I believe that gun manufacturers do have a role to play,” Brown responded. “They should suffer liability for these crimes that are being committed in our communities.”

The mayor also pointed to “over a century” of underfunding by the federal government in Black and brown communities.

“This has led to unacceptable increases in gun violence, segregation, crime, poor heath outcomes and generational poverty,” Brown said. “These factors made Buffalo a target for the May 14 shooter whose stated goal was to kill as many Black people as possible.”

Sarah Burd-Sharps, senior director of research for Everytown for Gun Safety, said her organization has estimated the cost of gun violence to be $557 billion every year. The share paid for by taxpayers to the government is $12.6 billion each year, or $35 million every day.

“Without a doubt, the human cost of gun violence is the most devastating. No dollar amount could ever fully convey the cost for families and survivors of gun violence,” Burd-Sharps said. “But examining the serious economic consequences is essential as well for understanding just how extensive and expensive this crisis is.”

Brodeur said that where mass shootings will occur is hard to predict, but he pointed to natural disasters as an example of how the federal government can help communities recover more quickly from damaging events. 

“When we look at the economic consequences of these disasters, usually they’re not permanent, they’re short run,” Brodeur said. 

“And one of the big differences between natural disasters and mass shootings is when there’s a mass shooting, there is no support for these communities, financial support. They need financial support after a mass shooting. This is obvious.”