Handling of Buffalo suspect spurs talk of uneven restraint
By DEEPTI HAJELA and CLAUDIA LAUER
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — When police confronted the white man suspected of killing 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, he was the very poster boy for armed and dangerous. He had an AR-15-style rifle and was cloaked in body armor. Yet officers talked to Payton Gendron, convinced him to put down his weapon and arrested him without firing a single shot. Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia that day cited their training and called it “a tremendous act of bravery.” In a country where Black people have been killed in encounters with police over minor traffic infractions, or no infractions at all, though, it’s raised the question: Where is that training when it comes to them?
