Kamala Harris on Saturday attended a Buffalo shooting victim’s funeral and called for unity during an impromptu speech.
At the Mount Olive Baptist Church in the New York city, the United States vice president told the mourners this is a moment in time for “all good people” to stand up to the injustice – as several incidents of mass shootings take place in the country.
“This is a moment that requires all good people, all God-loving people to stand up and say we will not stand for this. Enough is enough.
We will come together based on what we all know we have in common, and we will not let those people who are motivated by hate separate us or make us feel fear,” Harris said, as quoted by the news agency AP.
Harris further added that the “administration is not sitting around waiting to figure out what the solution looks like” to gun violence. “We have to agree that if we are to be strong as a nation, we must stand strong, identifying our diversity as our unity,” she added.
Mourners laid to rest the last of 10 black people that were killed in a racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket.
Following the funeral, Harris, along with second gentleman Doug Emhoff, visited a memorial outside the supermarket – after the funeral. The vice president left a large bouquet of white flowers at the site, and the duo paused to pray for several minutes.
Earlier on May 17, US president Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden had visited the memorial and visited the victim’s family. He had condemned the violence and had said.
That the nation “must reject the lie of the racist replacement theory”. Speaking to the victim’s family, he had said, “America’s diversity is its strength and the nation must not be distorted by a hateful minority. In America, evil will not win, I promise you.”
On May 14, a gunman wearing military gear and livestreaming with a helmet camera opened fire with a rifle in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people and wounding three others.
According to police officials, a video also captured the suspect as he walked into the supermarket. Out of the total killed and injured victims, 11 were black and two were white, added the police.