Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump pledged to sue “everybody” who was an accomplice to the Buffalo supermarket shooting, including the gunman’s parents, the New York Post reports.
“We absolutely intend on going after the gun manufacturers, the gun distributors, and anybody else who was an accomplice to this young 18-year-old white supremacist,” Crump said at a press conference held at the Antioch Baptist Church in Buffalo.
“We intend on going after everybody that was an accomplice to this young monster-killing these innocent people,” he added.
Crump accompanied by the Rev. Al Sharpton gathered in front of the church with the relatives of four people who tragically lost their lives.
Mark Talley spoke of his mother, Geraldine Talley, 62, who was killed in the shooting.
“My mom [became] a victim of this because somebody woke up and decided they didn’t like black people and shot a hollow point bullet [through her right temple] with her fiance watching, hiding in the cooler as best as he could,” Talley said. “My mother’s fiance had to watch her die.”
Veronica White recounted how her nephew Andre Mackniel, 53, was at the market to buy a surprise birthday cake for his 3-year-old son when he was shot in the back of the head.
We found out he was dead on Facebook,” White, flanked by other family members, told reporters as she broke down in tears.
She added that Mackniel’s son doesn’t yet know that his father is dead and “keeps thinking his father is asleep.”
“He’s gone, he won’t even know his father,” White cried.
“This is so senseless. I can’t believe someone would give some child a gun and let him think that it’s OK … to shoot people down like dogs,” she continued. “That doesn’t make any sense to me, it shouldn’t have happened.”
Sharpton who’s been in contact with the White House to create a hate crimes summit said that President Joe Biden has to do more than to show up in Buffalo. He called for concrete action from the President.
“I’m glad the president came but now we got to do more than come,” Sharpton said. “We got to stop this … It’s time for the president and others to convene on how we stop this.”
“These families … will never recover from what happened,” he added. “There will always be an empty seat at their table, their holidays will be hollow and the whole country must stand and let them know that enough is enough and that we stand with them.”
