ROCHESTER, NY — Garnell Whitfield Sr. still doesn’t know his wife has died.
In his mind, perhaps, his wife, Ruth, will soon return to the Buffalo nursing home, where she has been visiting him religiously for eight years.
He doesn’t realize that, on Saturday afternoon, she left his side and decided to stop at his neighborhood leads the friendly markets in East Buffalo for groceries. He does not know that during that daily visit to the supermarket, an armed man, dressed in bulletproof vests, entered the store with the apparent intention of killing as many black people as possible.
Garnell Whitfield Sr. is unaware that Ruth Whitfield, his loving wife of 68 years, is now dead. one of 10 people fatally shot in that Tops.
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“He left (the nursing home) to go get groceries on the way home and he found this sickness,” his son, Garnell Whitfield Jr., said at a Monday news conference in Buffalo.
Whitfield Jr., a former Buffalo fire commissioner, said his family has yet to break the tragic news to his father.
“What do we tell our father? How do we tell him that the love of his life, his primary caregiver, the person who kept him alive for the last eight years? How do we tell him that he is gone?”
Flanked by family members, some who were physically crushed with grief and unable to speak, Ruth Whitfield’s children and grandchildren spoke Monday of her loving love for her family, how she was the epicenter of the family with a constant focus in your well-being. . Some friends called them the Cleavers.
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Ruth Whitfield, 86, rarely left home without making sure she was impeccably dressed, her family said. She fished, she camped, she cooked some amazing macaroni and cheese.
And he made sure that his family, as black Americans, were proud of their heritage and ancestry.
“To those people who don’t see us, how dare they not see us as Americans?” said his son, Raymond Whitfield. “We are among the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors. She taught us to be proud of that fact.”
“She was unapologetically an African-American princess,” he said.
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Members of the Whitfield family acknowledged Monday that they were uncomfortable coming forward, stepping in front of dozens of members of the media with a phalanx of cameras from around the country accompanying them.
“It was not an easy decision for us to make it public,” said Garnell Whitfield Jr. But, he asked, “how else can we honor our mother?”
The family, working with attorneys, is considering lawsuits against those involved in firearms manufacturing and transactions that put a semi-automatic weapon and a high-capacity magazine in the hands of charged with 18 year old murderer.
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They are also examining social networks and even the main media platforms that it digested: some promoted white supremacist ideologyand some promoted what is known as the “replacement theory,” a fringe theory that holds that there is an effort to “replace” white Americans and deprive them of influence.
That racist theorylately, it has moved to a more generalized dialogue, even with Fox news anchor Tucker Carlson.
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“This was an act of domestic terrorism, perpetrated by a young white supremacist,” national civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at the news conference. “There was no doubt about his intentions. And just as the United States responds to terrorism, the United States needs to respond to these … acts of bigotry, racism and hate.”
One of the family’s attorneys, Buffalo attorney Terrence Connors, has successfully argued that gun manufacturers or dealers can be held liable in a criminal shooting. In that case, a New York appeals court found that there are exemptions within the standard legal immunity often granted to the firearms industry.
There must be some accountability for Ruth Whitfield’s death, her family said Monday.
“She took my mother and my best friend,” said her daughter, Robin Whitfield. “How dare you? How dare you?
“This needs to be fixed.”
Follow Gary Craig on Twitter at @gcraig1.
Reference-www.usatoday.com