Buffalo shooting victim laid to rest; city marks 1 week
Buffalo shooting victim laid to rest; city marks 1 week
Buffalo shooting victim laid to rest; city marks 1 week
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -
Roberta Drury, a 32-year-old woman who was the youngest of the 10 Black people killed at a Buffalo supermarket, was remembered at her funeral Saturday for "that smile that could light up a room," as the city marked one week since the shooting with sorrowful moments of silence.
"Robbie," as she was called, grew up in the Syracuse area and moved to Buffalo a decade ago to help tend to her brother in his fight against leukemia. She was shot to death May 14 on a trip to buy groceries at the Tops Friendly Market targeted by the white gunman.
"There are no words to fully express the depth and breadth of this tragedy," Friar Nicholas Spano, parochial vicar of Assumption Church, said during the funeral service in Syracuse, not far from where Drury grew up in Cicero.
"Last Saturday, May 14, our corner of the world was changed forever," he said. "Lives ended. Dreams shattered and our state was plunged into mourning."
Drury's family wrote in her obituary that she "couldn't walk a few steps without meeting a new friend."
"Robbie always made a big deal about someone when she saw them, always making sure they felt noticed and loved," her sister, Amanda, told The Associated Press by text before the service.
After the funeral, at the Tops store in Buffalo, the mood was a mixture of tension and somber reflection as the city marked one week since the racist massacre.
At exactly 2:30 p.m., the moment the gunman opened fire, people who gathered and placed flowers near the corner where the victims have been memorialized observed a moment of silence. A dozen workers stood in a line outside of the Tops store entrance. Nearby, some mourners wept.
At the same time, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and other elected officials, along with Tops President John Persons, bowed their heads on the steps of City Hall for 123 seconds to mark the span of the attack. Houses of worship throughout the city were encouraged to ring their bells 13 times in honor of the 10 killed and three wounded.
Joshua Kellick, a mental health and substance abuse counselor in Buffalo, said victim Geraldine Talley, 62, was a friend. She worked as a secretary in his office, but she was the glue that held their work family together, he said outside the store.
"She was nothing but loving and giving. She would go out of her way to help everybody. She was a mother, a grandmother to everybody, without actually being just that," said Kellick, who gathered with several of Talley's former coworkers to observe the moment of silence.
Jacob Blake Sr., the father of Jacob Blake, Jr., a Black man paralyzed after being shot several times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, said he flew into town from the Chicago area to offer support to the victims' families. When his son was shot, Blake said, he needed a true outpouring of support.
"What I needed was somebody just holding my hand," he said. "I just want the families to know that we're here to give them what they need."
As Drury was laid to rest, Spano said mourners would remember her "kindness ... love for family and friends, her perseverance, her tenacity, and most of all, that smile that could light up a room."
She was the second shooting victim to be eulogized.
A private service was held Friday for Heyward Patterson, the beloved deacon at a church near the supermarket. More funerals were scheduled throughout the coming week.
Back at the memorial, Kellick, who is white, said the shooter's motivations and the reality of systemic racism in the country prompted a moment of personal reflection.
"I have to learn a lot of things," he said. "I really need to look at my beliefs. I have a daughter at home. I need to be able to focus on teaching her how to love and care for people, no matter their sex, age, gender, race, sexual orientation."
Cher Desi, a niece of 86-year-old victim Ruth Whitfield, said she would use her own grief to push for change across the nation.
"I don't want anyone leaving here and judging people on their race, on their religion, or where they come from," said Desi, who now lives in Orlando, Florida, but often returned to Buffalo to visit the aunt who raised her. "How many people have to be devastated? The senseless killing has to stop."
With the nation's capital bracing for anticipated anti-mandate 'freedom' movement protests during Canada Day weekend, interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen says her MPs are free to attend.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the most sweeping gun violence bill in decades, a bipartisan compromise that seemed unimaginable until a recent series of mass shootings, including the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at a Texas elementary school.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ended the nation's constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years in a decision by its conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade. Friday's outcome is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.
They are the most fiercely polarizing issues in American life: abortion and guns. And two momentous decisions by the Supreme Court in two days have done anything but resolve them, firing up debate about whether the court's Conservative justices are being faithful and consistent to history and the Constitution – or citing them to justify political preferences.
Canadian politicians are responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to end constitutional protections for abortion, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling the news 'horrific.'
With the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to end constitutional protections for abortion, 26 states are likely to ban abortions; 13 of which are expected to enact bans against the medical procedure immediately.
Miners working in a gold field in Yukon have uncovered what is being called the 'most complete' mummified woolly mammoth found to date in North America, officials announced on Friday.
After a week of criticism and anger at the Mass Casualty Commission in Nova Scotia, and outcry in a rural area of New Brunswick, there are questions about the RCMP’s role in community policing.
Vancouver police insist there's not much they can say publicly about their investigation into the death of missing Indigenous teen Noelle 'Ellie' O'Soup, but 'everything's on the table' as they work to determine how and why she died.
An Ottawa criminologist says questions about whether political pressure was placed on the RCMP commissioner in the Nova Scotia shooting investigation illustrate why Brenda Lucki should not report to the public safety minister.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly says Canada will be bringing the concerns of smaller Commonwealth nations to the G7 leaders in Germany Sunday, particularly the growing threat of famine.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the most sweeping gun violence bill in decades, a bipartisan compromise that seemed unimaginable until a recent series of mass shootings, including the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at a Texas elementary school.
A year ago in the middle of the night, a 12-storey oceanfront condo building in Surfside, Florida, came down with a thunderous roar, leaving a giant pile of rubble and claiming 98 lives -- one of the deadliest collapses in U.S. history.
They are the most fiercely polarizing issues in American life: abortion and guns. And two momentous decisions by the Supreme Court in two days have done anything but resolve them, firing up debate about whether the court's Conservative justices are being faithful and consistent to history and the Constitution – or citing them to justify political preferences.
After weeks of ferocious fighting, Ukrainian forces have begun retreating from a besieged city in the country's east to move to stronger positions, a regional governor said Friday, the four-month mark in Russia's invasion.
An aftershock took more lives Friday and threatened to pile even more misery on an area of eastern Afghanistan reeling from a powerful earthquake that state media said killed 1,150 people this week.
Now that the House and Senate have adjourned for the summer, CTVNews.ca breaks down what key pieces of legislation passed in the final days of the spring session, and what key government bills will be left to deal with in the fall.
Canadian politicians are responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to end constitutional protections for abortion, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling the news 'horrific.'
The inquiry investigating the Nova Scotia mass shooting wants to know why the federal Justice Department withheld notes written by a senior Mountie for several months -- and if there's more revelations to come.
The Ontario Brain Institute is playing a key role in open science and brain health research with the release of new clinical data that will help scientists around the world advance investigations into pediatric neurological conditions.
German lawmakers voted Friday to end the country's ban on advertising abortions, which has in the past led to doctors being prosecuted for providing information about the procedure to potential patients.
Thirty-three countries have reported 920 probable cases of severe acute hepatitis in children so far, a jump of 270 from May, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
Coinciding with unrelenting cyberattacks against Ukraine, state-backed Russian hackers have engaged in "strategic espionage" against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups in 42 countries supporting Kyiv, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday.
NASA's first spacecraft designed to study a metallic asteroid won't be launching this year as planned, according to an announcement made by the agency on Friday.
Tennis star Osaka and her agent and business partner, Stuart Duguid, are forming a media company called Hana Kuma in partnership with The SpringHill Company, which was created by NBA star James and Maverick Carter.
Several celebrities including Viola Davis, Bette Midler and Stephen King reacted after the Supreme Court on Friday voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.
Statistics Canada says the number of job vacancies at the beginning of April hit just over one million, up more than 40 per cent compared with a year earlier.
Despite record low levels of unemployment, many sectors are suffering from labour shortages in the second quarter with restaurants and hotels continuing to be amongst the worst hit, a new Statistics Canada survey finds.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, corporate giants from a range of industries pledged to provide support and financial assistance for employees — and, in some cases, their dependents — seeking abortions in states that outlaw the procedure.
A new painting of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was revealed to the public on Thursday. The painting – the first official portrait of Prince William and his wife, Catherine, together – is on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, U.K.
Mounties in Coquitlam are appealing to the public for help tracking down two pieces of artwork that were allegedly stolen from a high school art display.
A bloodhound named Trumpet won the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on Wednesday night, marking the first time the breed has ever snared U.S. dogdom's most coveted best in show prize.
Canadians Bennedict Mathurin and Shaedon Sharpe took very different paths to the NBA, but their pro dreams were realized just minutes apart on Thursday.
Toyota is recalling 2,700 bZ4X crossover vehicles globally for wheel bolts that could become loose, in a major setback for the Japanese automaker's ambitions to roll out electric cars.
Two people involved in testing for the electric car brand NIO died when one of its vehicles fell three stories from a Shanghai parking structure, the company said Friday.
