Gendron was arrested outside the store’s front entrance. He said he knew some of the victims and couldn’t yet bring himself to walk the aisles where they died. “I can’t go right now,” said Willie Boyd, 82, as he chatted with friends on a sidewalk nearby. Some simply aren’t comfortable entering a store where such terrible events took place. Suggestions to local media and on social networks included turning the site into a park or recreational center that would bring the community together, or having several supermarkets that are more dispersed throughout Buffalo’s East Side. State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, whose district includes the city, said her office fielded calls from people opposed to reopening, but she said the community could not wait years for a replacement. “We must never forget the intoxicating pain and utter cruelness of what occurred here,” state Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday, before going inside the store. Its closure after the shooting forced many residents to take buses to other locations or rely on stopgap measures like neighborhood giveaways to access fresh food. Since opening in 2003, the Tops location remains the only supermarket in the immediate area. The decision to reopen, rather than relocate, the store has been met with mixed emotions in the east Buffalo neighborhood that, beset by high poverty, fought for years to get a grocery store. “The Justice Department fully recognizes the threat that white supremacist violence poses to the safety of the American people and American democracy,” U.S. Federal charges were first announced last month, and Gendron has pleaded not guilty in parallel state and federal cases. On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted the shooter, Payton Gendron, on counts including federal hate crime charges punishable by the death penalty. The store is still there for a reason,” said Bishop, 58, who was on her way to work when the attack happened and said she’s still processing her near miss. She wants the store open again - and couldn’t imagine not returning to work with colleagues who she considers family. “We must go on,” said Tops employee Rosalie Bishop, who has worked at the store for 12 years. He drove for more than three hours from his home in Conklin, New York, to carry out the attack, authorities said. Investigators say the shooter was motivated by white supremacist beliefs and researched the demographics of the predominantly Black neighborhood where the market is located with the intent of killing as many Black people as possible. Three people were wounded in the massacre. Ten Black people were killed when a then-18-year-old gunman wearing body armor and carrying a semiautomatic rifle opened fire on weekend shoppers and employees.
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