What we know so far about the victims of the Buffalo mass shooting

Officials and family members have begun to release the identities of the 10 people killed in a mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday.

Police said the accused gunman shot, in total, 11 Black people and two white people Saturday in a rampage that was broadcast live online, before he surrendered to authorities.

CBC is working to identify victims while trying to ensure their next of kin have been notified before publishing their names.

Katherine Massey

Katherine Massey was shopping for groceries when she was killed. Her sister, Barbara Massey, called her “a beautiful soul”, in a text message to a reporter.

The 72-year-old was an advocate for the Black community in Buffalo, according to the Buffalo News. The newspaper said she frequently wrote letters to them — including one last year arguing for more federal action and legislation to address gun violence.

Roberta Drury

Roberta Drury was “vibrant, outgoing and could talk to anyone,” her older sister Amanda Drury told CBC News, confirming her sister’s death.

The 32-year-old had moved from the family’s hometown of Syracuse, N.Y., to Buffalo around 2010 to be with her older brother after he underwent a bone marrow transplant for leukemia, helping him with his bar — The Dalmatia — and with his family, Amanda Drury told Reuters.

Pearly Young

Pearly Young ran a food pantry in Buffalo’s Central Park neighbourhood for 25 years, according to a tweet from reporter Madison Carter, who works for an NBC affiliate.

The 77-year-old was a grandmother and missionary who loved “singing, dancing” and being with family, Carter wrote.

Heyward Patterson

Heyward Patterson was a church deacon, nicknamed Jitney because he drove people to and from the Tops grocery store and helped them with their groceries, according to the Buffalo News. Patterson’s first name is listed as Haywood in a church directory, according to the Buffalo News.

Celestine Chaney

Celestine Chaney, a 65-year-old grandmother of six, went to Tops with her sister to buy strawberries to make shortcakes, her son Wayne Jones told the New York Times.

Chaney’s sister managed to hide in a cooler during the shooting, Jones said.

Aaron Salter

Security guard Aaron Salter fired multiple shots at the gunman, hitting his armour at least once, before Salter himself was shot dead, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia confirmed.

“He’s a true hero,” Gramaglia said Sunday. “There could have been more victims if not for his actions.”

Salter, whose age is listed as 55 in record databases, was a retired Buffalo police officer that locals described as a beloved community member who knew the shoppers of Tops Friendly Market by name.

“He cared about the community. He looked after the store,” said Yvette Mack, who had shopped at the Tops supermarket on Saturday before the shooting.

She remembered him as someone who “let us know if we was right or wrong.”

Mack would walk to the store to play lottery numbers and shop and said she spoke to Salter shortly before the shooting.

“I was playing my numbers. He said, ‘I see you’re playing your numbers!’ I laughed. And he was playing his numbers too. Can you imagine seeing someone and you don’t know he’s not going to go home?

Ruth Whitfield

Ruth Whitfield, 86, was the mother of retired Buffalo fire commissioner Garnell Whitfield, who was seen at the shooting scene Saturday, looking for his mother. She was confirmed as a victim later in the day.

Ruth Whitfield had just returned from visiting her husband at a nursing home, as she did every day, when she stopped in at Tops to buy a few groceries and was killed, her son told The Buffalo News.

She was “a mother to the motherless” and “a blessing to all of us,” her son said. He attributed her strength and commitment to family to her strong religious faith.

“She inspired me to be a man of God, and to do whatever I do the best I could do. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her,” Whitfield said.

WATCH | ‘We have to do better,’ N.Y. congressman says after Buffalo mass shooting: 

‘We have to do better,’ N.Y. congressman says after Buffalo mass shooting

New York Rep. Brian Higgins says more needs to be done after a racially motivated mass shooting by a white gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others in Buffalo on Saturday.