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Speaker 1: You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a

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Speaker 1: production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.

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Speaker 2: In the criminal justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom

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Speaker 2: to reshape the law. The brave men and women who

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Speaker 2: investigate and prosecute these cases are part of a select

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Speaker 2: group that is defined American history. These are their stories.

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Speaker 2: May fourteenth, twenty twenty two, two thirty pm, Buffalo, New York.

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Speaker 1: The hum of a Saturday afternoon at Top's Friendly Supermarket,

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Speaker 1: shopping carts rolling across pavement, families moving through the aisles.

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Speaker 3: Then screams, we are following reports of a mass shooting

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Speaker 3: at Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Police say there

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Speaker 3: are are quote multiple victims, but other details are scarce

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Speaker 3: and there is still a large police presence on sceen.

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Speaker 1: Gunfire echoed through the store. Each shot ricocheted off tailand steel.

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Speaker 1: Customers ducked behind shelves, workers pressed themselves flat against the floor.

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Speaker 1: In less than five minutes, ten lives were gone, and

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Speaker 1: across the city's East side, words spread at lightning speed

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Speaker 1: phones rang as sirens wailed. What had begun as an

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Speaker 1: ordinary trip for groceries had become a community's darkest hour.

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Speaker 4: When I first saw him shooting, he shot a woman,

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Speaker 4: he shot a deacon, he shot another woman, and then

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Speaker 4: he went in the store and started shooting again.

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Speaker 5: So I don't know who he was shooting at because

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Speaker 5: he shot at least eight eight people.

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Speaker 6: So he came feel safe in your own neighborhood. People

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Speaker 6: come over here.

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Speaker 5: What are we suits on shooting people?

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Speaker 6: This is what DULs.

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Speaker 5: I got a call. Get out to LaGuardia Airport. There's

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Speaker 5: been a bombing. There was a thirty two foot crater

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Speaker 5: in front of what was left of the building.

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Speaker 7: I was trying to figure out, am I dead? Am

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Speaker 7: I alive? Where am I?

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Speaker 1: I'm Aniseega Nicolazi.

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Speaker 5: That's why terrorism works. It doesn't care who you are.

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Speaker 1: From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is law and order,

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Speaker 1: criminal justice system. Buffalo, New York, sits on the edge

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Speaker 1: of Lake Erie, where the water meets the city's skyline.

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Speaker 1: Its streets stretch outward into old steel towns and quiet neighborhoods.

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Speaker 1: It's a place shaped by industry and weather, known for

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Speaker 1: its resilience as much as for its long winters. But

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Speaker 1: beneath the surface, Buffalo is also a city marked by

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Speaker 1: deep divides between its west side and its east side,

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Speaker 1: between privilege and poverty. It's also the place where Garnell

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Speaker 1: Whitfield grew up then served his community for over three decades.

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Speaker 5: I was a Commissioner of Fire, an emergency management for

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Speaker 5: the city of Buffalo, and did thirty four years with

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Speaker 5: the fire Department.

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Speaker 1: Garnell knows the city like the back of his hand.

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Speaker 1: On the east side sat a single supermarket known as Tops.

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Speaker 1: It stood on Jefferson Avenue, on a street that used

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Speaker 1: to be a thriving corridor for black businesses, but has

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Speaker 1: since endured decades of disinvestment. It was a rare anchor

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Speaker 1: in a neighborhood long abandoned.

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Speaker 5: Tops is the only market on the east side of Buffalo.

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Speaker 5: It's a food desert where eighty ninety percent of people

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Speaker 5: of color live in Buffalo, New York.

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Speaker 1: For thousands of families. This carried meaning far greater than

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Speaker 1: it's square footage.

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Speaker 5: It's a lifeline, yeah, I mean prescriptions whatever. It is

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Speaker 5: just a place that fellowship and meet. It's a place

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Speaker 5: of community. That's what it is, and it's in the

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Speaker 5: heart of the East side of Buffalo.

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Speaker 1: It was a steady presence in a part of the

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Speaker 1: city where so much else had been stripped away.

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Speaker 5: There's a lot of things about Buffalo, and it's a

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Speaker 5: former steel town. That industry is no longer in existence,

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Speaker 5: and so Buffalo has suffered for years. Buffalo is a

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Speaker 5: very poor city. It is at this particular moment, I think,

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Speaker 5: one of the sixth poor city in America, the sixth

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Speaker 5: most racially divided city in America for city its size.

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Speaker 5: It's one of the only cities in America of its

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Speaker 5: size that does not have a minority suburb.

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Speaker 1: Those conditions weren't foreign to him. He'd known them since

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Speaker 1: he was a child.

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Speaker 5: We've been in Buffalo my entire life. I remember being

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Speaker 5: very poor. My father, I think, made fifty dollars a

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Speaker 5: week working at one of the local stores. And we

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Speaker 5: lived in the projects. I mean, we grew up in

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Speaker 5: the projects. But my mom never let the projects grow

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Speaker 5: in us, you know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: At the center was his mother, Ruth. She was the

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Speaker 1: one who lifted the family up, refusing to let circumstances

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Speaker 1: to find them.

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Speaker 5: She was very proud of her family. She was very proud,

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Speaker 5: even though sometimes maybe she shouldn't have because we weren't

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Speaker 5: all I know. I caused her some consternation, but she

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Speaker 5: loved her family. She was married to my dad for

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Speaker 5: sixty eight years.

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Speaker 1: All truism shaped her life. She spent years caring for

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Speaker 1: the elderly, and even in her own retirement, she continued

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Speaker 1: to look after others.

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Speaker 5: Here's somebody who would bring strangers home, Somebody who would

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Speaker 5: visit the other people in the nursing home, no matter

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Speaker 5: what color they are. Somebody who was kind, somebody who

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Speaker 5: was loving, Somebody who believed in God and believed in

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Speaker 5: advocating for them least of these. That's who she was.

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Speaker 1: By the spring of twenty twenty two, Ruth was eighty six.

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Speaker 1: That Mother's Day, Garnell decided to do something special.

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Speaker 5: I had taken on a project of building her a

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Speaker 5: raised garden planter. She'd liked to grow fruits and vegetables

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Speaker 5: or whatever, and she had terrible back issues and could

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Speaker 5: not really tend to soil and bend over and do

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Speaker 5: that kind of thing anymore. So she could never buy

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Speaker 5: her anything. She'd had to buy it for herself. So

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Speaker 5: we had gotten used to giving her money. But I

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Speaker 5: wanted to do something more personal. This particular Mother's Day,

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Speaker 5: so I decided to build her raised planter and give

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Speaker 5: her money. So I had taken that project on and

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Speaker 5: wasn't able to complete it for Mother's Day to weather

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Speaker 5: that hadn't go operated, and I had to travel and

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Speaker 5: other things. But I'm out here on May thirteenth, and

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Speaker 5: I spent the entire day with her. It was extremely

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Speaker 5: warm that day, and she sat out in the yard,

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Speaker 5: we talked, and we had a wonderful day.

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Speaker 1: By late afternoon, the planter was in place, the soil leveled,

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Speaker 1: and the work nearly finished. It was time to wrap up, so.

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Speaker 5: I left her exactly a quarter to three on five

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Speaker 5: point thirteen. I said, I'm going to come back in

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Speaker 5: the morning and put some more dirt and raise the

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Speaker 5: level up even higher. You don't have to bend over

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Speaker 5: as much, and it's ready for planting. And she says

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Speaker 5: she was going to go get some seeds and we

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Speaker 5: were going to meet the next day.

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Speaker 1: The next morning, Garnell made good on his promise that

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Speaker 1: brought over dirt.

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Speaker 5: I put it in, knocked on the door, she didn't answer.

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Speaker 5: She needed to wear hearing age, and half the time

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Speaker 5: didn't wear them, and I didn't know if she just

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Speaker 5: didn't hear me, or she was resting, because she did

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Speaker 5: not sleep much at all. She was waiting on a

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Speaker 5: nerve block injection for her back and was in dire pain.

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Speaker 5: So I didn't want to disturb her, so I said,

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Speaker 5: I'll cut your at the nursing home. So I left.

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Speaker 5: I never saw her again.

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Speaker 1: The rest of that morning passed quietly. Garnell ran a

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Speaker 1: few errands with his wife. They were driving home when

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Speaker 1: the phone rang.

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Speaker 5: My sister in law caught and said that something had

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Speaker 5: occurred at Tops. Had we heard? And I said no,

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Speaker 5: we hadn't heard. We came back home and tried to

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Speaker 5: find out what was going on. There was no news,

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Speaker 5: there was nothing on the TV.

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Speaker 1: He picked up the phone again, this time to call

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Speaker 1: his mother.

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Speaker 5: So I called my mom just to check on her.

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Speaker 5: I hadn't seen her that morning. She didn't answer. My

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Speaker 5: wife called her sister and she didn't answer.

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Speaker 1: The silence wasn't settling. The television soon broadcast the breaking news.

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Speaker 5: Eventually, maybe fifteen twenty minutes, ribbon started coming across the

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Speaker 5: bottom of the TV, not with any real specific information,

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Speaker 5: but it's something that had occurred at Tops.

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Speaker 8: We're following the letters on that mass shooting in our country,

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Speaker 8: reports so that eight people had been killed. Reports say

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Speaker 8: the gunman issued some type of manifesto, that the attack

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Speaker 8: appears to be targeted, not yet confirmed though by authorities.

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Speaker 1: With a new sense of urgent. See. Garnell was intent

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Speaker 1: on reaching his mom, and.

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Speaker 5: So I called my mom again and she didn't answer.

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Speaker 5: And then I waited a few minutes, and I told

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Speaker 5: my wife. I said, I'm going to go check on

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Speaker 5: my mom.

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Speaker 1: As he drove, his mind kept circling back to the

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Speaker 1: unanswered calls. He stopped by her house, the car wasn't there.

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Speaker 1: He called again, still no answer. Something pulled him toward

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Speaker 1: Jefferson Avenue.

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Speaker 5: I know all of those people that responded, FBI, atf

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Speaker 5: Buffalo Police, Fire, Erie County, all of those people I've

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Speaker 5: worked with down to the year, so I know them

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Speaker 5: all personally. I couldn't find my mother. I was hoping

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Speaker 5: that I knew where she was, and something led me

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Speaker 5: to go by Tops. So I just showed up over

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Speaker 5: there at Tops.

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Speaker 1: What he founded the market was mayhem.

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Speaker 5: It was chaotic, it was a shooting, no definitive information,

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Speaker 5: There was no specifics or anything. There was a shooting.

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Speaker 1: In a matter of hours, his calm morning had turned

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Speaker 1: to panic, and at the center of it all was

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Speaker 1: the rock of his community.

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Speaker 5: When the public had started to gather, when there were victims,

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Speaker 5: I mean, it was tragic scene.

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Speaker 1: Every direction was noise and confusion. But his garnell edged closer,

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Speaker 1: his focus narrowed. He was looking for something specific.

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Speaker 5: I decided to see if my mother's car was there.

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Speaker 5: I don't know why, but I started walking the perimeter,

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Speaker 5: trying to ascertain whether, in fact I saw her car.

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Speaker 5: They had it all roped off of the parking lot.

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Speaker 1: The barricades blocked his view. He strained to see through

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Speaker 1: the maze of yellow tape and police.

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Speaker 5: As I approached the Jefferson Street side of the parking lot,

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Speaker 5: I was able to just see just a faint, small

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Speaker 5: part of the hood of a black vehicle. And it

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Speaker 5: was in the handicaps spot, right up by the store,

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Speaker 5: which is where my mother would have absolutely parked as

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Speaker 5: close as she could, and the handicaps having the back.

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Speaker 1: Issues in that His thoughts began to race as his

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Speaker 1: chest tightened.

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Speaker 5: I couldn't see the car. I got a detective. I

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Speaker 5: described the car to him, got a detective to go

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Speaker 5: into the scene and to identify the car, and that's

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Speaker 5: how I found out that she was there.

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Speaker 1: For Garnell. It was a moment suspended between hope and dread.

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Speaker 1: Was his mother among the victims? Had she made it

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Speaker 1: out alive? The only way to know was to keep searching.

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Speaker 1: As he looked for answers outside the store, the police

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Speaker 1: response continued to build. At the top of that chain

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Speaker 1: of command was the city's police commissioner.

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Speaker 4: My name is Joe Grimalia. I retired at the end

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Speaker 4: of January of twenty twenty five. I was the commissioner

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Speaker 4: for almost three years. Before that, I was a deputy

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Speaker 4: commissioner and district chief. Before that, I was a homicide commander.

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Speaker 4: That was a career Buffalo officer.

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Speaker 1: He knows its officers, its streets, and it struggles. Service

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Speaker 1: ran through his family and for Joe, it had always

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Speaker 1: been more than a job.

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Speaker 4: I like to say it's the family business. My father

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Speaker 4: was a New York State trooper, my uncles were local officers,

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Speaker 4: my cousins.

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Speaker 6: It's deep in the family roots.

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Speaker 4: I always idolized the profession and it was very singularly

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Speaker 4: tracked that that's what I wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: But on the afternoon of May fourteenth, his experience and

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Speaker 1: leadership were about to be tested in new ways. When

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Speaker 1: the call first came in, he drove faster than he

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Speaker 1: ever had before.

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Speaker 4: I don't live that far away, probably twelve to fifteen

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Speaker 4: minutes of normal driving. I think I got there in

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Speaker 4: about seven minutes.

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Speaker 1: Dispatcher calls kept coming through his radio. With every update,

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Speaker 1: the numbers grew.

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Speaker 4: When I got Onseene, the gravity of the situation really

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Speaker 4: hit me.

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Speaker 1: By two thirty six that afternoon, when Joe arrived, the gunman,

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Speaker 1: an eighteen year old named Peyton Grendon, was already in handcuffs.

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Speaker 4: When the first call went out. We had three police

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Speaker 4: officers in that parking lot, and I think it was

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Speaker 4: about sixty four seconds from the time the nine to

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Speaker 4: one one call went out, and the fourth police officer

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Speaker 4: got into that parking lot just the mere seconds after that.

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Speaker 4: They were able to get him into custody, got him

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Speaker 4: in a car, and got him out of there very

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Speaker 4: very quickly.

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Speaker 1: But even with a shooter apprehended, it wasn't clear if

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Speaker 1: the danger was over. The first priority was to eliminate

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Speaker 1: the possibility of a second shooter. Officers entered the store

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Speaker 1: and carefully walked his aisles, not knowing if another gunman

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Speaker 1: was waiting. Step by step, they moved in deeper. There

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Speaker 1: were frightened choppers crouched behind shelves. Then the scope of

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Speaker 1: the horror revealed itself, one victim, then another. The numbers

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Speaker 1: continued to grow. Bodies lay motionless across the floor, some

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Speaker 1: gravely injured and others already gone.

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Speaker 4: Our officers clearing the store once they were satisfied that

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Speaker 4: there was no other shooters, no other danger in the store.

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Speaker 4: Then you start looking at victims and the firefighters are

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Speaker 4: going through, and it was very obvious that anyone else

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Speaker 4: that had been shot in the store was an obvious

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Speaker 4: fatal wound. The officer is as tough as this is.

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Speaker 4: They have to advance past the wounded, They have to

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Speaker 4: advance past everybody to make sure that there's nobody else

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Speaker 4: causing harm in the store. If you stop and you

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Speaker 4: try to tend to a victim, more people could end

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Speaker 4: up getting shot and end up suffering. So the officers,

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Speaker 4: as difficult as it was, they had to keep pushing

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Speaker 4: through until they cleared that store. And then you go

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Speaker 4: back and start tending to the victims.

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Speaker 1: Firefighters stood by, ready to follow as soon as the

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Speaker 1: path was clear. Once police confirmed that the store was

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Speaker 1: saved to enter, firefighters served forward, turning their focus to

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Speaker 1: the wounded.

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Speaker 4: They ran into the store and two of the surviving

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Speaker 4: victims were inside the store. One of the surviving victims

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Speaker 4: was outside the store, and they actually used a shopping

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Speaker 4: cart to load the store manager into a shopping cart

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Speaker 4: and push that cart out and got them evacuated from

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Speaker 4: the store immediately and got him in an ambulance and

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Speaker 4: got him out of there.

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Speaker 1: By the time Joe arrived, rescue efforts were already underway.

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Speaker 4: I was met by one of the command officers that

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Speaker 4: just was shaking his head and trying to give me

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Speaker 4: the rundown of what exactly was going on, And one

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Speaker 4: of our veteran, seasoned homicide detectives said, come on, let

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Speaker 4: me walk you through the scene.

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Speaker 1: He passed bodies still lying in the parking lot. Everywhere

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Speaker 1: he looked were signs of panic and violence, frozen in place.

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Speaker 4: And walking around the store. It's something you'll just never unsee.

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Speaker 1: Every aisle showed signs of the devastation. As he walked through,

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Speaker 1: the horror light music filled the store.

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Speaker 4: The in store music system was still playing, and it

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Speaker 4: was early quiet in there.

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Speaker 1: An uncomfortable reminder of an ordinary day shattered in an instant.

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Speaker 1: Shopping cards were overturned, shelves were left scattered, and officers,

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Speaker 1: some of them barely holding it together.

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Speaker 4: As I was walking up, I remember some things very vividly,

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Speaker 4: and one of those was an officer that was just

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Speaker 4: completely overcome with emotion, and another officer was escorting him

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Speaker 4: out of the store and taking him away from the scene.

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Speaker 1: The scene was difficult even for seasoned officers. The obvious

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Speaker 1: violence was brutal, but there was also something else that

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Speaker 1: made this hit close to home.

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Speaker 4: One of the victims that we lost, Aaron Salter, was

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Speaker 4: a former Buffalo Police officer. He'd been retired for several years.

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Speaker 4: He retired in two thousand eighteen, and there were numerous

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Speaker 4: officers on scene that knew him.

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Speaker 1: Many officers knew the victims, some had worked alongside Aaron Salter.

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Speaker 1: The images inside that store would not fait easily.

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Speaker 4: Our peer team was contacted almost immediately to get members,

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Speaker 4: and they're an all volunteer peer team.

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Speaker 6: To look out for our.

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Speaker 1: Members, Counselors waited in the parking lot, meeting officers as

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Speaker 1: they came out to ensure they were ready to keep going.

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Speaker 4: This is where I think police officers can sometimes be

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Speaker 4: looked at differently. But we've got a job to do,

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Speaker 4: and there's not to say that we're not human and

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Speaker 4: officers aren't going to go through the various stages of

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Speaker 4: emotion at the time, But you've got to maintain some

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Speaker 4: control and I had a job to do, so I

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Speaker 4: kind of had to snap myself into shape like every

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Speaker 4: other officer on scene there, and we had to start

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Speaker 4: working through that.

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Speaker 1: Joan needed to focus. There was still a city to

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Speaker 1: comfort and keep under control. There was also the crime

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Speaker 1: scene to manage, and a public waiting desperately for answers.

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Speaker 1: A command post was set up across the street. The

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Speaker 1: mayor and the FBI arrived. Within an hour, Jefferson Avenue

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Speaker 1: had become the center of national attention. Reporters swarmed. Joe

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Speaker 1: had to carve out a space where investigators could focus

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Speaker 1: on what needed to be done as the outside world watched.

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Speaker 4: There was a kind of a vacant parking lot across

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Speaker 4: the street from this location, and we established this as

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Speaker 4: our command post.

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Speaker 1: The crowd was swelling, the parking lot was sealed, tensions

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Speaker 1: were rising. That's when the two men finally came face

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Speaker 1: to face.

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Speaker 4: While I'm in that command post, the former Buffalo Fire

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Speaker 4: Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, he came walking up to me. I said, hey, Garnell,

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Speaker 4: he's like Joe, He's like, can you tell me if

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Speaker 4: my mother's in the store. And that was like a

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Speaker 4: gut punch, like froze, and I said, Garnel, I don't know.

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Speaker 4: We don't have any of the identities of anybody that's

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Speaker 4: in the story yet, but I said, look, stay here

341
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Speaker 4: at the command bus, and as soon as I hear something,

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Speaker 4: I'll let you know, but stay here. Come to find

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Speaker 4: out that his mother was the oldest victim that was

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Speaker 4: inside the store.

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Speaker 1: For Garnell, the encounterset in motion of frantic search.

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Speaker 5: I still didn't know whether she had been shot or

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Speaker 5: anything like that. So I talked to Joe Grimaudia. He

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Speaker 5: assigned a lieutenant to me. Because they had evacuated maybe

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Speaker 5: twenty five people from the store and taken them to

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Speaker 5: police headquarters to debrief them. They did not have a

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Speaker 5: list of names of those people, and so I went

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Speaker 5: about to businesses, trying to ascertain whether, in fact, my

353
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Speaker 5: mom was one of the persons who had been evacuated.

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Speaker 1: Hours passed without answers.

355
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Speaker 5: They hadn't locked the names of the people and had

356
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Speaker 5: made them available, so it was tough getting any information

357
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Speaker 5: from them.

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Speaker 1: Garnell had to find another way.

359
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:03,440
Speaker 5: I got another detective. I asked him to go in

360
00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:07,399
Speaker 5: and look and see if my mother was there. He

361
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Speaker 5: needed a description of her. I had not seen her

362
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Speaker 5: that morning, so I did not know what she had on,

363
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Speaker 5: and I did not have a picture of her readily available.

364
00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:18,880
Speaker 5: I didn't even think to look through my phone. So

365
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,359
Speaker 5: I called the nursing home. I got them to send

366
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Speaker 5: me the video tape of the visitors from that morning.

367
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Speaker 5: I knew my mom had gone to the nursing home,

368
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Speaker 5: and so I got them to send the video to me.

369
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Speaker 5: I gave that to the detective.

370
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Speaker 1: And then came the silence, the kind every first responder

371
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Speaker 1: knows too well.

372
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Speaker 5: When he didn't come back. I knew, you know what

373
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Speaker 5: I'm saying. I mean, I knew I've done this a

374
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Speaker 5: number of times myself, so I knew right away. And

375
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Speaker 5: so with something he passed to the commissioner and to

376
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Speaker 5: the others, people of the authority who were my peers.

377
00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:58,119
Speaker 5: They gathered, and I had already set myself apart and

378
00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:02,439
Speaker 5: was grieving. I knew exactly what was going on, and

379
00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:06,439
Speaker 5: so they all came, Mayor and county exact and ology's people,

380
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 5: they all came. But I already knew. I mean, I've

381
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Speaker 5: been on the other side this for a long time,

382
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:16,199
Speaker 5: so being on this side of it as a victim,

383
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Speaker 5: as someone looking for answers, was very different, I gotta say.

384
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:35,680
Speaker 1: As Garneld Whitfield reeled from the news that his mother Ruth,

385
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Speaker 1: was among the victims, the shock was also settling over

386
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:44,320
Speaker 1: the entire city. When the numbers were finally confirmed, the

387
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Speaker 1: scale of the loss was overwhelming.

388
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Speaker 6: Ten died, three survived.

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Speaker 1: It was a massacre carried out with strategic planning, then

390
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:59,400
Speaker 1: broadcast live on the Internet as it unfolded. That choice

391
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Speaker 1: was delivered bread a way to spread terror beyond Buffalo.

392
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Speaker 1: As soon as law enforcement realized what was happening, the

393
00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 1: stream was taken down, but by then the damage was done.

394
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Speaker 1: The images had already escaped into the world. The toll

395
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Speaker 1: weight heaviest on the community. It had so deliberately targeted.

396
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Speaker 4: Eleven of the victims were black and two were white.

397
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Speaker 4: One of the victims that was shot was in the

398
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Speaker 4: pharmacy area and I guess was hit by a stray

399
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 4: round if you will, suffered a grazing wound and was

400
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:43,120
Speaker 4: very fortunate. The other was the store manager. You had

401
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 4: one woman there, one of the oldest victims, buying seeds

402
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Speaker 4: for her garden. Springtime time to start getting gardens ready.

403
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Speaker 1: That woman was Garnell's mom.

404
00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 4: You had other people that were there, obviously just getting

405
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Speaker 4: their groceries. You had a victim that was working in

406
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Speaker 4: the store that was the security guard, our former officer.

407
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Speaker 4: You had one individual that was there buying a birthday

408
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Speaker 4: cake for his three year old son.

409
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Speaker 1: The crowd around the market was growing by the hour.

410
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Speaker 4: The officers on scene were doing a tremendous job. They

411
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 4: had the entire parking lot taped off, and what I

412
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:24,760
Speaker 4: saw was probably a couple hundred people on the outskirts

413
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Speaker 4: of the parking lot, with more people starting to gather.

414
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 4: One of the things that went through my mind immediately

415
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Speaker 4: is this could be trouble. Did we have appropriate manpower

416
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 4: in the event that people were going to start rushing

417
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 4: the parking lot, and where emotions going to get the

418
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:42,679
Speaker 4: best of people. These are the type of valid thoughts

419
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Speaker 4: that police officers have to think of.

420
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Speaker 1: For a moment. The question was whether raw grief might

421
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,160
Speaker 1: turn sorrow into unrest.

422
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 4: There was none of that. I said this time and

423
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 4: time again in interviews, in both local and national interviews,

424
00:23:57,800 --> 00:23:59,919
Speaker 4: that the one thing that I saw is that we

425
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 4: we were all in this together. We suffered a loss,

426
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 4: the community suffered a loss. Obviously the family members suffered

427
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 4: the biggest loss. But it's like everybody was in this together.

428
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:14,679
Speaker 4: And I saw instances of our officers hugging and comforting

429
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:17,120
Speaker 4: people on the other side of the crime scene tape.

430
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 4: And I saw people in the community hugging and comforting

431
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:22,479
Speaker 4: our officers on their side of the crime scene tape.

432
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: Media trucks continued to roll in with their satellite dishes

433
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 1: aimed at the sky.

434
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:31,959
Speaker 4: At the end of the night, we moved the command

435
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 4: posts inside the parking lot. I totally underestimated the speed

436
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 4: of the national media. Full studios were set up in

437
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 4: that parking lot.

438
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: At the same time, investigators were uncovering details about the

439
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: gunmen and looking for the motivation for his savagery.

440
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 4: Right off the bat, it was told that this was

441
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 4: a racially motivated shooting because the weapons had writings all

442
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 4: over them that identify with white supremacy replacement theory had

443
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:08,360
Speaker 4: the names of other shooters, other people that identified similarly

444
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 4: with this shooter, So it was immediately known. There was

445
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 4: no mistaking what the motive of this was. He's a

446
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 4: young white male. You can look at the number of victims.

447
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 4: Eleven of the thirteen were African American. You had two

448
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 4: that were white. But the more we watched the video

449
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 4: and the more we looked through to see, it was

450
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 4: glaring what this was.

451
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: In the chaos and pain of that first evening, the

452
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: city still had to face the cameras and.

453
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 4: We had our first press conference at about five point

454
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,439
Speaker 4: thirty three hours after the shooting, and the mayor and

455
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 4: myself called it for what it was. And I think

456
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,959
Speaker 4: that's something that the community has come to appreciate. And

457
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,199
Speaker 4: it's not because I'm saying that, it's because I've been

458
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 4: told that numerous times. That we called it for what

459
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 4: it was immediately at the first press conference, that this

460
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 4: was a race motivated hate crime.

461
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 9: Let's be clear, this was an act of domestic terrorism

462
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 9: motivated by hateful and perverse ideology that terrors at the

463
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 9: soul of our nation. All Americans should reject the hateful

464
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,199
Speaker 9: lies that pit one race against another.

465
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: While city leaders were revealing the bigotry that motivated the attack,

466
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 1: Garnell was left to bring the grim news back to

467
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: his family.

468
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 5: My children work for the fire department, not all of them,

469
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 5: but some of them do. My daughters were dispatchers on

470
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 5: five fourteen. On that day, I had to call and

471
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 5: get them relieve the duty.

472
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: The Whitfield family began assembling from far and wide.

473
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 5: I had to immediately start thinking about the rest of

474
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 5: my family. My brother's down in Florida. He just ran

475
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 5: straight to the airport and jumped on a flight and

476
00:26:58,200 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 5: left everything unsettled.

477
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: Even as his own grief set in, Garnell was able

478
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: to remain level headed.

479
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what I'm trained to do, or the compartmentalized,

480
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 5: or do whatever, and to focus on the mission. So

481
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 5: that's my training, that's what I've always done, and actually

482
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 5: that's what I'm still doing, you know.

483
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 1: But no training could block the reality. This wasn't someone

484
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: else's tragedy, this was his own.

485
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 5: Right then, it was about my family, you know what

486
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 5: I'm saying, making sure my family was okay, Because, like

487
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 5: I say, I've seen a lot of things, have been

488
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 5: exposed to death and tragedy, and have always been present

489
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 5: at times like this in other people's lives, So I

490
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 5: kind of knew what they would be going through, what

491
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 5: they would be, you know, what would be happening with them,

492
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 5: So that had to be the focus. You know, wasn't

493
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 5: really time to grief, wasn't really time to process all

494
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 5: of that. You know, It's like, what do we have

495
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 5: to do now? How do we get through this? How

496
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 5: do we make sure the rest of them are okay?

497
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: The crime soon drew in departments from outside the city,

498
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:05,880
Speaker 1: so there.

499
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 4: Were three agencies that were involved in this. You've got

500
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 4: the homicide investigation, so our homicide detectors are going to

501
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 4: do their scene processing and they're going to investigate the

502
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 4: homicides for presentation to the local district attorney. But now

503
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 4: you've got the FBI, who was immediately unseene that we're

504
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 4: going to take over the racially motivated hate crime terrorism

505
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 4: side of the investigation, and the New York State Police.

506
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: The agencies worked together, digging deeper into the government. They

507
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: needed to figure out if he'd been acting alone.

508
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 4: From the federal side, which we were deeply involved with,

509
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 4: you have to make sure that there's nobody else out there.

510
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 4: Was he a loone actor, did he have help? Did

511
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 4: he have anybody else? Is there going to be anybody

512
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 4: else doing any other acts of violence anywhere else? Hence

513
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 4: the reason why the New York State Police got search

514
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 4: warrantson went into his home, and then the FBI getting

515
00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 4: their tech people out there and starting to dig into

516
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 4: what his postings were, where he went. It was quickly

517
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 4: learned that he lived downstate, about three hours away on

518
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 4: the Pennsylvania border, so the state police were immediately activated

519
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 4: to get to his house.

520
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: Teams were dispatched with warrants, digging through the shooter's home

521
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: and devices, searching for evidence and any sign of accomplices,

522
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long before they learned that this

523
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 1: was a plan long in the making.

524
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 6: He was very methodical.

525
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 4: He knew exactly where he was going, what he was doing,

526
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 4: how he was going to advance through the store. He

527
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 4: put a lot of training into this, which really goes

528
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 4: at the intentionality of this. With some moderate deviations, he

529
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 4: went very much according to plan that was laid out

530
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 4: in his discord diary how he wanted to stop the

531
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 4: security guard because he knew that the store employed armed security,

532
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 4: which were all former police officers, and he knew that

533
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 4: they were going to be a challenge.

534
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: What investigators uncovered next was equal disturbing Tops was only

535
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: meant to be one phase of a larger plot.

536
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 4: In reviewing the discord diary and manifesto, he had plans

537
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 4: to go on to two other locations and continue to shoot,

538
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 4: in his words and his diary, more black people along

539
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 4: the way between Location one and two and Location two

540
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 4: and three. We also know from his diary that he

541
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 4: had an estimated body count that he was trying to

542
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 4: achieve at each of these three locations. As catastrophic as

543
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 4: this incident was, it could have been double and triple

544
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 4: the size of that.

545
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: The horror inside Tops have been planned for months, including

546
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: rehearsals and a final dry run the day before.

547
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 4: We know that this individual came to the store a

548
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 4: couple months prior doing reconnaissance and surveying the store, and

549
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 4: that was part of his diary. There's some older guys

550
00:30:56,800 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 4: that like to hang out under the trees, there, and

551
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 4: they've been doing that for a long time. But one

552
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 4: guy in particular came up to us and said, I've

553
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 4: seen that guy here before it goes. As matter of fact,

554
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 4: I spent time talking to him. But he was also

555
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 4: there the day before doing a final walkthrough, and he

556
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 4: had spent some time sitting on the bench out front

557
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 4: talking to this older gentleman.

558
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 1: And were they average everyday conversations. Certainly nothing that the

559
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: guy thought was odd at the time, right.

560
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 4: No, there was nothing that anyone missed that would have

561
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 4: sent up signal flares of somebody to call.

562
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: What that surveillance revealed was elaborate planning. Uncovering everything they

563
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: could about the shooting remained law enforcement's first priority.

564
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 4: The FBI had brought in their top evidence collection team.

565
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 4: That team was flown in. The equipment was flown in

566
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 4: the next day on Sunday.

567
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: Over the following days, federal specialists left no stone unturned.

568
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 4: I'm asking the special Agent charge of the Buffalo Field

569
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 4: Office of the FBI how much longer he thought the

570
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 4: store would be held as a crime scene. And he

571
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 4: walked me through the store and showed me exactly what

572
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 4: they're doing. I mean, the capabilities of the FBI and

573
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 4: to recreate and the computerization, and they accounted for just

574
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 4: about every single round and where it went.

575
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: And what became crystal clear was that the lives of

576
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: so many people had been cut short, people just going

577
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: about their everyday lives.

578
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 4: So as we're walking the store through the front of

579
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 4: the store, back to the register where one of the victims,

580
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 4: where that birthday cake was still sitting on the conveyor

581
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 4: belt with the sun's birthday on there, it.

582
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:37,719
Speaker 1: Just got a chill down my arm.

583
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 4: And you said it yeah, And that just unbelievably impactful

584
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 4: on me.

585
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: As families grappled with grief, law enforcement set the table

586
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: for again Dron's prosecution.

587
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 4: He was immediately brought back to the Homicide office, brought

588
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 4: into a room, and the Chief Homicide Prosecutor and the

589
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 4: homicide team reported rate the Buffalo Police Head Court and

590
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 4: they took over.

591
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: On June second, twenty twenty two, Gendron was arraigned in

592
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: state court on charges including murder, attempted murder, and hate crimes.

593
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 4: But top charge, aside from murder in the first degree,

594
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 4: was the domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which was a

595
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 4: relatively new charge in New York State, had never, to

596
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 4: the best of my recollection, never been charged before, but

597
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 4: most definitely had never been successfully prosecuted.

598
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: The case never went to trial. On November twenty eighth

599
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: of that same year, Gendron Plit guilty. Three months later,

600
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to life without parole, but a separate

601
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 1: federal case was still moving forward.

602
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 4: He is still facing federal charges, which that process is

603
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 4: making its way through the federal courts, and he's facing

604
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 4: the death penalty.

605
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the mass murder, Garnell's community reached

606
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: far beyond Buffalo. The violence has tied him to other

607
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: greeting families across the country. The crimes are all distinct,

608
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: yet they all shared similar pain.

609
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 5: I've been all over this country. I've been with all

610
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:14,359
Speaker 5: of the families, Vivaldi, Sandy Hook, I've been all over

611
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,239
Speaker 5: the place Las Vegas. I've met a lot of these people,

612
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 5: with a lot of these families, and a lot of

613
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 5: these shootings happened in schools where you have young people

614
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 5: who obviously pull out your heartstrings, and it's a huge problem.

615
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 5: But one of the things I recognize is that Buffalo

616
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 5: was very different Buffalo. They took our elders. They took

617
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 5: people who were deeply entrenched and rooted in our community,

618
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 5: people who others depended upon for sustenance, for care.

619
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 1: He turned to a metaphor to express the loss.

620
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 5: Like if you have trees in your yard, and one's

621
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 5: a sapling and one's a mature tree, the mature trees

622
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 5: are deeply rooted. They provide sustenance, they provide fruit, they

623
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:01,240
Speaker 5: provide food, they provide protection for everything on And that's

624
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 5: what we lost in Buffalo. That's who my mother was.

625
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 1: Even in their sixties, Garnelle and his siblings still realize

626
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 1: how much they leaned on their mother.

627
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 5: We're just still discovering how intertwined and how connected and

628
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 5: how dependent we all were on her, even at this

629
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 5: age in our lives. We lived vicariously through her in

630
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:31,280
Speaker 5: some ways, and you don't realize what you have until

631
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 5: it's gone.

632
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: Her absence has also brought a new kind of purpose.

633
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:40,720
Speaker 5: My mother being a mature tree and me being under

634
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 5: her protection, under her shade, if you would. The other

635
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 5: thing about these trees in the forest is that everything

636
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 5: under them, while it is protected, their growth is also stunned.

637
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 5: And not until that tree is gone, those things under

638
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 5: it really grow and reach their full potential and grow

639
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 5: into whatever there issued to be. And so that's the

640
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 5: other thing about my mother not being here. We've had

641
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 5: to grow in ways that we could never have done

642
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 5: while she was here, that we haven't done while she

643
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 5: was here. And so that's another aspect of this whole thing.

644
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 5: Her death has given my life purpose and meaning in

645
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 5: a way that I never would have imagined. My mom

646
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 5: is bigger in death. My mom's death has and life

647
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 5: has meaning that it would not have had otherwise. I mean,

648
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 5: that's just the truth of the matter. So she's forever

649
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,760
Speaker 5: now written in the annals of history as a part

650
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 5: of what helps drives this conversation and hopefully helps drive change.

651
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 5: Her death is the impetus for this discussion we're having.

652
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 5: Her death puts her in a place of eternal She's

653
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 5: gonna be remembered forever in ways that many of us won't,

654
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 5: and I think that's fitting. I think that's an honor.

655
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 5: And I guess in some way she's a murder. So

656
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 5: I'm very proud of my mother.

657
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: What happened in Buffalo is not a one time anomaly.

658
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: It is tied to other similar tragedies across the US,

659
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: all involved lone gunmen, radicalized online striking with heat filled intent.

660
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 10: Nearly sixty people are dead and more than five hundred

661
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 10: injured after a man started shooting into the crowd.

662
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: At a country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.

663
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 11: Downtown Charleston is a sea of police lights and crime

664
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 11: scene tape inside the historic em Manual Ame Church. A

665
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 11: lone gunman described as a white male in his twenties.

666
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,320
Speaker 11: He's believed to have opened fire, ultimately killing nine people

667
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 11: before fleeing.

668
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 5: Okay, so you were in the walmart.

669
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: I'm just happy.

670
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 7: We had just walked in past the produce section and

671
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 7: we were going to the freezer foods, like where the

672
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 7: frozen dinners are.

673
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 9: But I heard.

674
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 8: Doo doo doo, and then it went do do do do.

675
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 7: Like closer together, So then that's when I thought it

676
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 7: was gunshot.

677
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: What happened at Tops was hate in its most lethal form,

678
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: all carried out by just one person. Michael Jensen, a

679
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: researcher who tracks terrorism, says that what makes this modern

680
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: era distinct is the rise of individual terrorists versus groups.

681
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 10: One of the other features that really kind of separates

682
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:31,359
Speaker 10: this movement from past ones. Is this moving beyond these

683
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:37,800
Speaker 10: autonomous cells to individual actors? Right, It's a lone actor

684
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 10: driven environment in which a single individual can take it

685
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 10: upon themselves to engage in act of violence on the

686
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 10: behalf of a broader movement, and not only that, they

687
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:52,760
Speaker 10: can do it in a way that is very low

688
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 10: in sophistication and very hard to detect, but very very effective.

689
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: The most common form of terror is no longer the

690
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 1: bomb plot or coordinated hijacking.

691
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 10: It's someone within easily acquired assault rifle walking into a

692
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 10: public place that has no security deterrence and opening fire.

693
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 10: That's very, very difficult to detect and to respond to.

694
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 10: But the effect is the same, the fear that it causes,

695
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 10: the attention that it generates.

696
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 1: This kind of violence has become part of the national

697
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 1: news cycle, and that too feeds the problem.

698
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 10: They're always in the headlines because these attacks are happening

699
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 10: so frequently, and for these movements, they see that as

700
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 10: a good thing, right, that they're being talked about, their

701
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 10: ideas are being talked about. They're reaching new audiences, they're

702
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 10: drawing in new communities into their online spaces where they

703
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 10: can rapidly radicalize them.

704
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 1: What once might have been considered rare is now recurring

705
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: with alarming regularity.

706
00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 10: This trend towards lone actor extremism will can continue. The

707
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 10: Internet is going to continue to play a massive role

708
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 10: in radicalizing individuals and getting them involved in these groups.

709
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 10: In these movements, communication technology is not going anywhere, and

710
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 10: it's been highly effective in growing the groups, and they

711
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:16,760
Speaker 10: will look to leverage.

712
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: That these singular actors are no longer the exception, they're

713
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 1: the norm. As such, law enforcement has been forced to

714
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 1: learn new ways to combat this reality. For Jeremy Sensky,

715
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: a survivor of the twenty twenty five New Orleans attack,

716
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: the threat of a lone wolf strike wasn't abstract. It

717
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: was the sound of a truck on Bourbon Street barreling

718
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: into a crowd on New Year's Day. We heard his

719
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:02,360
Speaker 1: story in episode one. That attack is a prime example

720
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: of what modern terrorism looks like.

721
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:06,920
Speaker 5: Nobody was with me.

722
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 12: I was by myself. My wife had went back to

723
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 12: the room with my daughter, and I was on my

724
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 12: way back to the room. I was almost to Canal Street.

725
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 12: I mean we're talking maybe ninety seconds. I would have

726
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 12: been on Canal Street and I wouldn't even this would

727
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 12: have never.

728
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: Happened ninety seconds. That was the difference between walking back

729
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: into a hotel room or being struck head on.

730
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,720
Speaker 12: The first cough that came over to me, I said,

731
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 12: my legs, my legs, my legs, And I was like,

732
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 12: what happened? He said, we don't know. You were trying

733
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 12: to assess this situation. He just looked at me and said,

734
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 12: you're lucky to be alive. Everyone around you is dead.

735
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: Yet Jeremy's survival wasn't guaranteed.

736
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 12: Somebody came over to my head and put a yellow

737
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 12: ax on my head, So I guess there's different coatings

738
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 12: they put on your head for like the condition you're in,

739
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 12: how fast they got to get you, or something like that.

740
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 12: Yellow is better than red. Red's the worst. And then

741
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,279
Speaker 12: I think there's green, and then I think there's one

742
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 12: that means you're basically deceased.

743
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:09,720
Speaker 1: That X meant that his injuries didn't appear life threatening,

744
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 1: at least not yet.

745
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 12: They had changed my yellow axe to a red X

746
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 12: in the ambulance because I had lost so much blood

747
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 12: and my legs were so bad that I became like

748
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:20,359
Speaker 12: a party.

749
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 1: In all around him. Others fared even worse.

750
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 12: I heard somebody screaming, we found someone over here, we

751
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 12: found someone in there.

752
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 5: We needed to do CPR.

753
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 12: I've heard people say.

754
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:33,280
Speaker 5: We lost them.

755
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 12: Basically, I was like one of the last people they

756
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 12: had attended to in my area.

757
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: As Jeremy was being rushed to the hospital, his family

758
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: had no idea what had happened. His wife, Crystal, tried

759
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:46,759
Speaker 1: reaching him.

760
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 13: There was no answer, and I was a little concerned,

761
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 13: but not too too concerned, because he could have got

762
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 13: sidetracked on the way home.

763
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 1: The not knowing is an entirely different type of fear.

764
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: She couldn't just go to bed. Crystal is Jeremy's wife

765
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 1: but also his caregiver ever since he was in an

766
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: accident in nineteen ninety nine that paralyzed him, so she

767
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: had been nervously waiting up for him that night.

768
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 13: So I'm like, I'm awake. Now he's got to be

769
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,480
Speaker 13: on his way, so I'll just lay here and watch TV.

770
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:24,240
Speaker 1: Then an uneasy feeling grew once she picked up the remote.

771
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:26,240
Speaker 13: So I turned the TV on and I'm like flipping

772
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 13: the stations, and I happened to stop on something where

773
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 13: they were talking about it on the news, and I'm like, oh,

774
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 13: is that in New Orleans? And then I realized, I'm like, God,

775
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 13: that's in New Orleans. And then I started to panic.

776
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 13: My daughter had laid back down, and I went in

777
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 13: her room and I'm like, something is seriously wrong. There's

778
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 13: something wrong. There's some major thing happening.

779
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 1: At that point, they started scrambling for answers.

780
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 13: My daughter and I are putting shoes on. We were

781
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 13: staying right off a canal, maybe like a block from Bourbon,

782
00:43:57,680 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 13: so as soon as we went outside of the hotel,

783
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 13: we could see like just firetrucks and police and.

784
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: Everything from the street. There were no signs of Jeremy.

785
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:10,280
Speaker 1: Their search next led to the hospital.

786
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 12: They kept asking them for the guy in woelchair, and

787
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:15,439
Speaker 12: no one associated me with a guy in woelchair because

788
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 12: it wasn't No one actually saw me in a woelchair.

789
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 13: And finally the head nurse was walking by and she

790
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,359
Speaker 13: stopped in mid track and she was like, oh, my god,

791
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 13: I just talked to him. He's okay.

792
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: By morning, the world had already seen the wreckage, and

793
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 1: in the hours after the attack, friends and family started

794
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 1: calling Crystal. They'd seen a viral photo spreading online.

795
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 13: One of the reasons why we were so quick to

796
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 13: go to Facebook is because the morning that had happened,

797
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:49,320
Speaker 13: people were calling us starting six o'clock in the morning,

798
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 13: like when they woke up, because that was Jeremy's chair

799
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 13: in that picture, and that's what was going around was

800
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 13: the picture of the truck with his chair next to it.

801
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 1: Jeremy's chair is Jeremy's wheelchair. He relies on it for mobility.

802
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: It was an expensive blue chair with his fanny pack

803
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: still clipped to the seatbelt. Anyone who knew Jeremy would

804
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: recognize it instantly.

805
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 13: A lot of family and friends were reaching out asking

806
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 13: is this Jeremy? Is this Jeremy?

807
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:25,359
Speaker 1: The chair was more than an identifying marker. It might

808
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 1: have also saved Jeremy's life.

809
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 13: His wheelchair weighs so much that it would stop the truck.

810
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 13: And I know that that sounds insane, but what people

811
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 13: don't realize is that he doesn't have like your normal

812
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 13: electric wheelchair that your grandpa has. Even without him in

813
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 13: the chair. That chair weighs over three hundred pounds and

814
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:49,879
Speaker 13: all the weight is in the.

815
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: Base of it. And now it makes sense too. When

816
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: Jeremy was telling me that he didn't think his chair

817
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 1: moved very much, that whatever the impact was propelled him.

818
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: Because the picture his wheelchair is right there within feet

819
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: of the truck.

820
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 13: Yeah, and I mean, of course that lift stopped the truck.

821
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 13: But it just makes sense that that guy hitting that

822
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,240
Speaker 13: chair had to have caused him to lose somewhat control.

823
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:17,320
Speaker 13: Like when he hit people, they just either went underneath

824
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 13: or over the top. Jeremy didn't go underneath or over

825
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 13: the top of that car. He flew, but the chair

826
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 13: did not. The chair was still on all four wheels.

827
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 1: The chair absorbed the impact. Jeremy's body did the rest.

828
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 13: But it's the bottom part of his legs that were

829
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:38,720
Speaker 13: just like mangled. And it's like being hit by a truck,

830
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 13: standing against a boulder or a wall and your leg's

831
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 13: gonna shatter.

832
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: Recovery would take months.

833
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:50,360
Speaker 12: My biggest thing was just trying to get my legs

834
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:52,240
Speaker 12: strong so I don't have to worry about him breaking

835
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 12: or I feel like com fragile right now.

836
00:46:54,600 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: Basically, Crystal saw something few others understood. Jeremy's paralysis spared

837
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: him much of the expected physical agony.

838
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 13: He wasn't in that much pain. I mean, of course,

839
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:10,239
Speaker 13: he was because he had black eyes and stuff like

840
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 13: he got beat up, But as to his injuries, he

841
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:16,879
Speaker 13: couldn't feel any of it. So he was completely coherent,

842
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:18,839
Speaker 13: like when he says he was laying on the side

843
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 13: of the street and next to the truck like, he

844
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:23,800
Speaker 13: was able to be so coherent that he was able

845
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 13: to try to even though he was confused about what

846
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 13: was going on, he was not in any pain to

847
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 13: make him delirious.

848
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: That clarity meant he absorbed every detail, and in the

849
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: weeks after that, trauma followed him home.

850
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 12: Noises like loud vehicles. There's a lot of people that

851
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 12: road their trucks up or rub their cars up, and

852
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 12: anythink it's cool. I guess it is cool if you

853
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 12: like that kind of thing. I used to go to

854
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 12: motorcycle races a lot, and truck pulls and stuff like that.

855
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 12: But whenever I'm going down the street and I hear

856
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 12: that noise, I'll turn around, look and find out and

857
00:47:57,560 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 12: see what tell's coming towards me.

858
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 1: Now, the street noise was one thing, but when he

859
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 1: closed his eyes, the entire attack became vivid.

860
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 12: Just screaming on the street in the sound, that sound

861
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:15,399
Speaker 12: of that vehicle when it turned off canal as soon

862
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 12: as it hit that straightaway and made that noise, It's

863
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 12: just the thunking of people.

864
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 1: As the weeks passed, Jeremy tried to make sense of

865
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:28,720
Speaker 1: why he had survived while so many others hadn't.

866
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 12: Yeah, life's long fair. People tell me I'm glad to

867
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 12: be alive, and there's a purpose for me. God wants

868
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,359
Speaker 12: me here for something. I keep thinking, if that's true,

869
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 12: then it has to be something to me, like trying

870
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 12: to fight terrorism. But I don't know how the Pholas

871
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:47,520
Speaker 12: fight terrorism. In my position, it is a question.

872
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 1: He still wrestles with what it means to survive an

873
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: act of hate and how to live with the memories.

874
00:48:55,400 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 12: It's very sad that people would kill me, multiple people

875
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 12: of a religion, or for any reason at all, but

876
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 12: to do it in the name of some kind of religion.

877
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:09,840
Speaker 12: I do think about it all the time, and it

878
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 12: just destroys everybody's confidence and everything, and it makes people

879
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 12: hate other people.

880
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: The perpetrator took lives and left scars that will never

881
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: fully heal. But for Jeremy, the only path forward is

882
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: resolved and refusing to let hate win.

883
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 12: I mean, I'm not going to live my life like

884
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 12: I'm afraid to go anywhere else.

885
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:33,319
Speaker 5: So some I'm not going to do that.

886
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 12: They say, what if you do that, the terrorists win.

887
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 12: I'm not afraid to go anywhere like I have friends

888
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 12: that don't even leave their house at the time. They're

889
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 12: afraid to go anywhere. And I go to concerts.

890
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 6: I love to do stuff there.

891
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 12: You only live one time, and no matter what handicaps

892
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 12: I have, I'm going to do whatever I can, however

893
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 12: I can.

894
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: In New Orleans, it wasn't a foreign network or a

895
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:03,360
Speaker 1: coordinated cell. It was one man acting alone, weaponizing the ordinary,

896
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 1: a truck and a crowded street to cause maximum fear

897
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: and destruction. He embodied the new face of extremism, the

898
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: lone actor, radicalized and determined, capable of turning an everyday

899
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 1: space into a scene of terror. Law enforcement has evolved

900
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: with the shifting facade of terrorism. For decades. Investigators have

901
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: been chasing the threat, learning from each attack, building new tools,

902
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: and adapting. The danger has never disappeared, but neither has

903
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: the effort to confront it. The story of terrorism in

904
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 1: America is also the story of the people who continue

905
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: to fight it, then and now. The way we all

906
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: fight back is by holding onto our lives, refusing to

907
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 1: let fear dictate where we go, what we do, do,

908
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 1: or how we live.

909
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 5: We're going to have more events, There's no question about

910
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 5: it that it's going to happen.

911
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:09,720
Speaker 13: You need to project a.

912
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 2: Positive response and basically maintain your way of life.

913
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:18,000
Speaker 1: There's evil out there and it has to be defeated

914
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: when you see it.

915
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 5: It can't be coddled, it can't be excused. It has

916
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:24,320
Speaker 5: to be defeated.

917
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 7: We are all going to have things happen in our

918
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:30,359
Speaker 7: life that are out of our control, that are bad.

919
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 7: But you always have control of a response. Even in

920
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 7: the moments where I was buried alive, I couldn't move,

921
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 7: I couldn't do anything. I had my mind, I could think,

922
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 7: I could get my mind on something different. I could

923
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 7: control that. That has been helpful for me.

924
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 5: Anyway.

925
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:50,240
Speaker 1: If we let it alter the rhythm of our days,

926
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: then the violence echoes beyond the attack, because the moment

927
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 1: fear changes our day to day. Their mission is complete,

928
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: and behind every headline, every case we've told this season,

929
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:12,360
Speaker 1: there are teams of people working tirelessly and often invisibly, agents, analysts,

930
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 1: prosecutors and local police. Together, they carry the fight forward

931
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 1: to keep the peace, to bring justice, and to make

932
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: sure the next attack is stopped before it begins.

933
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 2: Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of

934
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 2: Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazzi.

935
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:57,399
Speaker 2: The show was written by Cooper Mall, Executive produced by

936
00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 2: Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf, and Steve Michael at Wolf Entertainment

937
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 2: on behalf of iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers Trevor Young and

938
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 2: Matt Frederick, with supervising producer Chandler Mays and producer Jesse Funk.

939
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 2: This season is executive produced by Anna Sega Nicolazzi. Our

940
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 2: researchers are Luke Stantz and Carolyn Tolmage. Editing and sound

941
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 2: designed by Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Original music by

942
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:32,840
Speaker 2: John O'Hara, Original theme by Mike Post with additional music

943
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 2: by Steve Moore and additional voice over by me Steve Zarnkelton.

944
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,880
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Fox five in New York for providing

945
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:46,160
Speaker 2: archival material for the show. For more podcasts from iHeart

946
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 2: in Wolf Entertainment, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

947
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 2: wherever you get your favorite shows. Thanks for listening,