Buffalo mass shooting: African-American communities in NYC hope true crackdown on hate is coming

NEW YORK — Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo is hitting home in Black and brown communities.

CBS2’s Astrid Martinez was in Harlem on Sunday and spoke to residents about how the tragedy is opening up wounds in New York City.

“I thought we came so far, you know? But it’s like there’s just no love. They’re sad. A lot of people are angry,” Barbara Semora Howard said.

Semora Howard is a 20-year resident of Harlem. She said she can’t make sense of Saturday’s tragedy.

“It’s so sad to see what’s going on in America today. I don’t understand it. I’m 60 years old and I’ve never seen nothing like this,” she said.

For Tina Claudino, the shooting is a deadly reminder that racial tensions are far from over.

“I mean, it just really kind of like goes to show that there’s still a lot of hatred, even in the young youth. Eighteen years old, drove 200 miles,” Claudino said.

Adding more trauma of the event, Brett Roman Williams, the chairman of the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia, called into question how the shooter was apprehended.

“Well, from the coverage, my first instinct was seeing him in handcuffs and being gently taken care of and that always triggers a lot of us in terms of how we see how the police handle the white men, while males who create or actually commit atrocious crimes such as that one,” Williams said.

He knows pain all too well. He lost his father and brother to shootings. Now he’s the board chair of a grief counseling organization that once helped him.

“Because it’s not just affecting the individuals that were murdered, but the loved ones as well, the co-victims,” Roman Williams said.

And it’s a pain that will continue because the incident in Buffalo is nothing new for the Black community.

“To see this young man, this terrorist, white supremacist, go into a neighborhood in Buffalo and target Black people … We’ve seen it once and we’ve seen it again, and it can happen again and so there needs to be some type of accountability,” Roman Williams said.

He said only then can the hatred be truly stopped.