BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Katherine “Kat” Massey is scheduled to be laid to rest Monday as funerals continue for the victims of the racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket.
Massey, 72, has been described by her friends as a civil rights and education advocate. Last year she wrote a letter to her hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News, addressing “escalating gun violence in Buffalo and many major U.S. cities” and calling for “extensive” federal action and legislation.
“Current pursued remedies mainly inspired by mass killings — namely, universal background checks and banning assault weapons — essentially exclude the sources of our city’s gun problems,” the letter read. “Illegal handguns, via out of state gun trafficking, are the primary culprits.”
Massey was among the 10 Black people killed May 14 when a white gunman in body armor targeted shoppers and workers at a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Three others were injured in the attack, which federal authorities are investigating as a hate crime.