Buffalo shooting victim survived bullet through his neck, his mom says
A Tops supermarket employee is recovering at home after surviving a gunshot to his neck in Saturday’s racially motivated shooting in Buffalo, his mother said.
The bullet went through Zaire Goodman’s neck and back, mother Zeneta Everhart told The Buffalo News.
“A couple inches to the left or the right and he wouldn’t be here,” Everhart told the newspaper. “I know his life was spared for a reason, and he has to find out what that reason is.”
The shooting left 10 people dead, and wounded three others, including the 20-year-old Goodman. Goodman was hospitalized and discharged on Saturday and is in “good spirits,” his mother said.
Goodman has worked at Tops for two years, according to Everhart, who said her son was helping a customer with her cart when he suffered the gunshot at close range.
The woman whom Goodman was helping was reportedly fatally shot. Goodman didn’t move until the shooter walked away, and managed to call Everhart after fleeing the scene.
“He’s a free-spirited kid. This happened to him and now he’s done with it,” Everhart said of her son, who has autism. He didn’t require stitches for his wound and will be OK, she said.
Officials arrested Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, N.Y., in connection with the shooting and charged him with murder. A manifesto allegedly written by Gendron claimed the Zip code where the supermarket is located has “the highest Black percentage that is close enough to where I live.”
Eleven of the 13 people wounded in the shooting were Black.
Conklin is about 200 miles southeast of Buffalo.
