It’s been three months since a white man killed three Black people at a Jacksonville, Fla. Dollar General in a racially motivated shooting. As it prepares to reopen, it’s worth asking if a store haunted by a tragedy of this magnitude should go back to business as usual or be memorialized.
Joy Shepard Harrington, a witness of the shooting, told News4Jax she and her husband witnessed 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter enter the Dollar General Aug. 26 and fatally shoot 19-year-old AJ Laguerre Junior, 52-year-old Angela Carr and 29-year-old Jerrald Gallion. Harrington and her husband, who live by the store, said they are reminded of the sounds of gunfire ringing off every time they drive by.
“That was a horrible day. If you never lived through nothing like that, you don’t want to,” said Harrington. The trauma of the whole incident made her decide to never step foot in that Dollar General again.
Yet, the report says the store is nearing the end of renovations to open again, creating yet another awkward transition from grieving a racist massacre to business as usual.
Shoppers at Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, N.Y. faced the same dilemma when it reopened two months after 10 Black people were fatally shot by Peyton Gendron in a racially motivated massacre on May 14, 2022. It was among the area’s main grocery stores in what was otherwise a food desert, CNN reported.
Despite it being a vital resource, residents were still fearful of stepping foot in the store after the shooting.
“It’s going to take us a long time to get over this. It really is. We’re living, breathing human beings. A lot of us are still having nightmares,” said Rose Marie Wysocki, Tops produce manager, via CNN.
Folks in both communities have expressed discomfort in walking the same aisles in which innocent lives were taken in acts of racist hate. Will Black people ever be afforded the time and space to grieve or will the show just go on without us?