Buffalo survivor describes terror in Tops market: ‘Something told me to get up and run’

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BUFFALO — At 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Julie Harwell was at a Tops supermarket picking up some hamburgers and hot dogs for her birthday barbecue. Her partner, Lamont Thomas, and 8-year-old daughter, Londin Thomas, sneaked away across the store to buy mix for a birthday cake.

Harwell turned 33 on Sunday. Londin picked out strawberry cake with vanilla icing.

Then the shooting started.

At first, Harwell said, it appeared to be a robbery. Gun violence in this neighborhood in East Buffalo is not uncommon, residents say, leading to a wide network of peace-building and faith-based groups to offer social support and economic opportunities to mostly young Black men.

But the shooting continued, Harwell said, and the gunman — identified by police as 18-year-old Payton Gendron — fired too many rounds to count. She called for her daughter and partner, then dropped to the floor and tried to crawl away on her stomach.

“By the time I called their names, I heard more shots,” she said.

Lamont and Londin Thomas escaped to the dairy section and hid in the milk coolers until they were evacuated by police close to 20 minutes later. But Harwell didn’t know that.

As shots rang out, the sounds bounced off the walls of the grocery store. It sounded like they were coming from everywhere. Food items fell off shelves. Other shoppers and store clerks tripped over themselves trying to escape.

“Something told me to get up and run,” she said.

The gunman was stalking through the store, she said, apparently searching for victims. Of the 13 people shot, 11 were Black, according to law enforcement officials, who are investigating the shooting as a racially motivated hate crime.

As Harwell ran through the aisles, she crossed paths with the shooter. He was an arm’s length behind her as she and another shopper — one of the only White victims of the rampage — tried to escape. The other shopper lunged at the gunman. He shot her dead, Harwell said. It was enough time, Harwell said, for her to make it to the back of the store and hide.

“If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be alive,” Harwell said. “She lunged at him, and that’s why she’s dead. I don’t even know her name. I want to tell her family thank you.”

Police evacuated Harwell to the north side of the supermarket about 20 minutes after the shooting began, and Lamont and Londin Thomas to the south side. Ten minutes later, after Gendron had surrendered to law enforcement, the family was reunited.

They walked home. They only live several blocks away.

“I just cried the rest of the day,” Harwell said.

Londin, her parents say, is handling the shooting better than the both of them.

Harwell and Lamont Thomas were praised by faith leaders at a prayer vigil Sunday morning for protecting their daughter and helping her process the violence at their grocery store.

“She’s been better than everyone else,” Harwell said, with Londin standing beside her in a green ice-pop-print dress. “She’s been talking to me, keeping me in good spirits.”

“I wasn’t that scared [during the shooting],” Londin said. She spoke with The Washington Post with her parents’ permission. “I was just scared for my mom.”

correction

A previous version of this article misspelled the first name of Londin Thomas. This article has been corrected.

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