Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown (I) on Sunday said “let Buffalo, New York, be the last place that this kind of mass shooting happens” after a gunman opened fire in his community one day earlier, killing 10 people.
Brown, during an interview with moderator Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” said the country has to “focus on sensible gun control” following the fatal shooting in his city.
“I think the question that we need to ask ourselves: are any residents safe in this country anywhere? We have to focus on sensible gun control,” Brown said.
“That said, after all of these mass shootings that have taken place in this country for different reasons, year in and year out, month in and month out, week in and week out, let Buffalo, New York, be the last place that this kind of mass shooting happens,” he added.
The mayor said “we have to put more pressure on lawmakers in Washington,” specifically targeting who he called “obstructionists.”
“So we have to put more pressure on lawmakers in Washington, those that have been obstructionists, to sensible gun control, to reforming the way guns are allowed to proliferate and fall into the wrong hands in this country,” Brown said.
Thirteen people were shot on Saturday when a gunman opened fire at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, N.Y. Eleven of the victims were Black. Authorities are now probing the attack as a hate crime.
The alleged gunman, 18-year-old Payton Gendron of Conklin, N.Y., who is white, was arraigned Saturday night on first-degree murder. He was wearing military gear during the attack and broadcast his actions through a helmet camera on Twitch, a live streaming platform.
The video, however, was taken down within two minutes of the violence beginning, according to Twitch.
Police said the gunman drove hours to arrive at the supermarket.
Brown on Sunday said the Buffalo community is “certainly saddened that someone drove from hundreds of miles away, someone not from this community that did not know this community that came here to take as many Black lives as possible, who did this in a willful, premeditated fashion, planning this.”
“But we are a strong community and we will keep moving forward. This is a community that is experiencing development. People have been hoping and waiting for investment and growth and opportunity. We are beginning to see that in this community, in all parts of the city, and we won’t let that progress stop. We won’t let hateful ideology stop the progress that we are seeing and experiencing in the city of Buffalo,” he added.