BUFFALO, N.Y. — A Tops employee says the man who fatally shot 10 people at the Buffalo supermarket was kicked out of the store the day before the shooting.
Shonnell Harris Teague is the operations manager for the store. She says two customers complained about the 18-year-old Payton Gendron Friday night after he was asking for money.
“I met him in the meat department area and I asked him if he could leave the store because he can’t be soliciting in the store asking for change, because he’s making customers feel uncomfortable, and asked him ‘can you please leave the store?’ He said ‘OK.’ And I noticed when he was leaving the store, his eyes were wandering, he was wandering,” said Harris Teague.
Harris Teague said the shooter was wearing the exact same clothes on Friday as he was Saturday, when she saw him again.
But her encounters with the shooter don’t end there. Harris Teague says she was inside the store during the shooting. But, she was almost in the parking lot, where the shooting started. Her daughter asked to buy snacks, so they walked back inside the store.
“We went back into the store and right before we went into the store, the first lady who got shot was coming across the parking lot,” said Harris Teague.
Now, Harris Teague is left with many ‘what ifs.’
“I can’t sleep… I can still see with my eyes closed, hearing any loud noise just makes me jump because I can still hear the guns shooting, people screaming, people crying,” she said.
Harris Teague says Tops employees are being offered extra help. She says she's been able to talk to someone both Monday and Tuesday and plans to go again on Wednesday. She says she has not decided if she will continue to work at the store.