Buffalo shooting: what we know about the victims so far

An 18-year-old white teenager opened fire at a Buffalo, New York supermarket on Saturday, killing 10 people and wounding three others in what authorities have described as a “hate crime and racially motivated violent extremism”.

Eleven of the 13 victims were Black, and two were white.

Authorities said that the shooter, who is white, drove to Tops Friendly Market around 2.30pm, “allegedly wearing tactical gear and armed with an assault weapon”. When the shooter arrived, he shot four people outside the grocery, three of whom died, local prosecutors said.

He then entered the supermarket, where a security guard, who had recently retired from the Buffalo police department, tried to stop him. The guard died in the exchange, and the shooter shot eight additional people inside the store, six of whom died, authorities said.

The attacker was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge hours later, authorities said. Here is what we know about the victims so far.

Salter, a retired Buffalo police lieutenant, was working as a security guard at Tops on Saturday when the shooter entered the grocery. Salter shot at the shooter in an effort to stop him, but was fatally wounded, according to WHIO TV.

“One of the individuals inside the store is a security guard, a beloved security guard, who is a retired Buffalo police officer – a hero in our eyes – he engaged the suspect and fired multiple shots,” Buffalo’s police commissioner, Joseph Gramaglia, reportedly said at a press conference.

Salter was 55, WHIO said.

The 86-year-old had just visited her husband at his nursing home when she decided to pick up food at Tops, WGRZ reported. Whitfield is the mother of Buffalo’s former fire commissioner, Garnell Whitfield.

The Buffalo News identified one of the victims as Katherine Massey, reporting that a family member confirmed her death. She went to Tops to buy groceries, the newspaper reported. Massey’s sister, Barbara Massey, said in a text to a reporter: “She was a beautiful soul.”

• This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.

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