VP Kamala Harris visits Buffalo for funeral of supermarket shooting victim Ruth Whitfield
The funeral of Ruth Whitfield will be live-streamed in the video player above.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) -- Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris and the Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff are in Buffalo for the funeral of Buffalo supermarket shooting victim Ruth Whitfield. Vice President Harris left Washington, D.C. from Joint Base Andrews for Buffalo at 8:45 a.m.
She was joined by New York State Governor Kathy Hochul and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Air Force Two. At noon, Harris and Emhoff will attend the memorial service of 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, according to the Office of the Vice President.
The vice president and first gentleman are scheduled to leave Buffalo for Washington, D.C. at 2:20 p.m. It's not known if Harris will visit the Jefferson Avenue Tops Markets, where 10 people were killed and three injured in the May 14 mass shooting carried out by a white supremacist in an act of domestic terrorism.
Whitfield, the mother of former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, was shopping at Tops after visiting her husband in the nursing home, her family has said.
“Our family has been ripped apart,” Garnell said two days after the shooting. “It’s been devastating. It’s like somebody tore our heart out.”