Ruth Whitfield, 86, left the nursing residence the place her husband of 68 years was dwelling Saturday and stopped by Tops grocery retailer to select up just a few gadgets. There, she encountered 18-year-old Peyton Gendron, who reportedly shot and killed her.
Now, her household says they’ve but to inform her husband that his spouse and caregiver has died.
“We’re ready on my sister to reach and we’re going to go there collectively,” Garnell Whitfield, Jr., informed The New York Submit. He stated that his mom cared for his father throughout the previous eight years that he has been dwelling within the nursing residence.
“Shaving him, chopping his nails, cleansing his ears, chopping his hair, washing him, bathing him…ensuring his room was adorned for holidays,” Whitfield stated from his residence.
“She devoted her whole life to her household however particularly the final eight years to him.”
Ruth Whitfield was one of many 10 victims who had been slain in a racially-motivated assault by Gendron who shot 13 folks, 11 of whom had been Black.
“She”s the type of one who would have tried to dissuade the gunman from doing what he was doing, that’s who she was,” Whitfield stated of his mom.
“She wasn’t afraid of energy, she wasn’t afraid of dying. I can solely think about what her final moments had been like. It’s devastating, man. She’s our spine. She’s our mother. She’s the strongest particular person I’ll know in my life and possibly will ever know once more.”
“She raised us to be productive, God-fearing folks and this flies within the face of the whole lot we had been taught to consider,” Whitfield stated.
“This 18-year-old man from nowhere exhibits up and kills my mom and these different folks. The place did this hate come from? The reality of the matter is he was birthed by the system. He’s a product of our America, that’s who this man is.”
Garnell Whitfield, Jr., is the previous fireplace commissioner of the town of Buffalo.
“We’ve been brutalized, victimized, scarred,” Whitfield stated. “Our lives are without end modified.”
Particulars proceed to emerge in regards to the taking pictures, together with the truth that Gendron allegedly surveilled the grocery retailer the day earlier than, assembly and talking to a number of folks.
