Buffalo mourns ‘star in midst of unrest’ killed in racist attack

BUFFALO – Amy Pilc never had contact with Heyward Patterson, a driver at the supermarket where she often went grocery shopping.

Ms. Pilc would observe Mr. Patterson, 67, helping elderly customers with their shopping bags, as if she seemed to be enjoying such a small act. Some days she walked to the market several times, seeing his grin on every trip.

His mind got her thinking, she said, about what good she could do in her own life.

It wasn’t until Mr. Patterson was murdered in a racist supermarket massacre last week that Mrs. Pilc learned that, like so many others in the Masten Park neighborhood of Buffalo’s East Side, she had a small personal connection to him: He was her goddaughter’s great-uncle. .

“That’s why I came,” said Ms. Pilc, 46, in a Friday morning interview outside Mr. Patterson’s funeral at Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church. “It’s such a small world here, and he didn’t deserve it. None of them deserved it.”

The Friday service was the first of 10 for 10 black people who came to Jefferson Avenue grocery store, Tops, on their own personal, everyday missions — a shift work, a dinner stash, a trip to buy a birthday cake for a 3. year-old son – but whose life ended together.

Mr. Patterson’s family asked reporters not to enlist. But hundreds of visitors from across New York state traveled to Buffalo on Friday to mourn the death of their friend, a deacon at the State Tabernacle Church of God, whose greetings at the front entrance brightened the days of believers.

Deacon Patterson, as he was known, would cost a few dollars to arrange rides from the Tops in Masten Park, a poorer neighborhood where many residents do not have a car and depend on close neighbors for help. Almost every day he loaded his Ford Fusion with shopping bags, drove customers home and repeated the journey to help the next neighbor in need. Even for those who never exchanged words with him, he was woven into the fabric of the community.

“He was a bright star amid turmoil,” said Clyde Haslam, 66, who attended kindergarten with Mr. Patterson and has been his friend ever since.

“We’ve been through so much,” Mr. Haslam added. “But regardless of the ups and downs, he always smiled. And so we have to smile here today.”

For Mr. Patterson – Tenny or Boy Tenny to his family and friends – the Tops store in Masten Park was like a second ministry. He was murdered in the store’s parking lot while doing one of his other duties: packing groceries in someone else’s car.

It was a way for him to earn some money, but it also reflected a trait that his loved ones believed guided him: a desire to help others. The trait was as evident in his volunteer work at his church’s soup kitchen on Glenwood Avenue as it was in his pastoral shoppers at the market.

“Tragic as it is, it happened while he was doing what he loved to do,” said Darrell Dwayne Hicks, who met Mr. Patterson about 25 years ago. “It couldn’t be otherwise. He wasn’t doing wrong in the street. He did something for the people.”

The bond the two men shared was forged through decades of work in soup kitchens and at church services.

“It’s like losing a brother,” Mr. Hicks said. “I can’t tell you how much it hurts.”

Many of the mourners wore purple buttons with Mr. Patterson’s nickname and portrait beneath a gold crown. Over and over, with tears in their eyes, they described him as a loving friend and a righteous man.

“I knew him through the community, he spread peace and love,” said Murray Holman, who leads Buffalo’s Stop the Violence Coalition. “We’ve done food drives. He was a good man. A very good person.”

Several dozen distant relatives of Mr. Patterson, a group that also included a cousin’s godmother, were asked to sing a selection of gospel music during the service.

Members of his immediate family, who are still struggling to bear the loss, did not speak outside the church.

On Thursday, his ex-wife, Tirzah Patterson, had spoken to the families of three other people who had died in the disaster. For the youngest of his three children, Jacques Patterson, 12, she said adjusting to a world without his father — who gave him “everything he asked for” — was devastating.

“Every day I have to pray and do a check-in to make sure he’s not all over the place mentally,” said Ms. Patterson, adding that her son struggled to eat and sleep all night. “His heart is broken.”

Jacques Patterson planned to share his own thoughts at the event on Thursday. But when his mother began to speak, he buried his face in his hands. And when she was done, the younger Mr. Patterson shook his head, wept, and fell into the chest of Reverend Al Sharpton, who hugged him and rubbed the back of his gray T-shirt.

“As a mother, what do I have to do to get him over this,” said Mrs. Patterson, who had been married to the deacon for 15 years. “They took his father.”

On Friday, the feeling of lingering heartbreak continued: A 70-year-old cousin stood around the corner from the high red front doors of the church as other family members walked in to view Mr. Patterson’s body.

The man, who refused to give his name, said he could not bear to see his lifeless lover, when even talking about him was too much.

For David Wilson, 66, another cousin of Mr. Patterson, decades of memories flashed through his mind as he left the church. He had seen Mr. Patterson a week before the attack, and Mr. Patterson had encouraged him to stop by his church for a service.

The two hadn’t had regular contact in recent years, Wilson said. But as children, they regularly crossed paths. mr. Wilson recalls spending an afternoon with Mr. Patterson and a group of other family members.

Five dollars was up for grabs. All Mr. Patterson had to do was walk around the block in silk underwear and a matching T-shirt and pick up the money.

“And he did,” said Mr. Wilson. “That was him: He just wanted to make people laugh — and that ghost never left him.”

Lauren D’Avolio reporting contributed.