Updated as of 1/12/2024 at 11:00 a.m. ET
It’s been four months since a white man killed three Black people at a Jacksonville, Fla. Dollar General in a racially motivated shooting. Now, the store is back in business and ready to receive customers.
The aisles of the store have been brandished with new shelves replacing the ones damaged by bullet holes. The floors have been cleaned and buffed of the blood stains. The shelves are neatly stocked with merchandise and a fresh produce section has been added. There’s even a “well-being” aisle stocked with health and wellness products, according to News4Jax.
Any new customer would never assume that such a horrifying massacre occurred...unless they notice the three large memorials erected on the border of the parking lot to honor 19-year-old AJ Laguerre Junior, 52-year-old Angela Carr and 29-year-old Jerrald Gallion, the three people slain in the shooting.
Despite Dollar General donating up to $2 million to local organizations addressing education, food insecurity and community healing, the attorney representing the families of the shooting victims believes the biggest service to the community would be ensuring their safety.
“It minimizes the value of their lives. This is about money, what they’re doing. They’re trying to market again to say, ‘Come back into our stores and buy our items. So we can make up for the profit loss from having closed the store,’ having closed the store because the walls were covered in blood,” said Adam Finkel, a lawyer with The Haggard Law Firm, via News4Jax.
The report did not mention whether security guards would be present on the property, as suggested by some city residents. New security installations so far feature additional camera surveillance throughout the store. However, some people still may never enter the store’s premises no matter how many fresh vegetables are on display.
Was Reopening The Right Move?
When the store originally announced the plan to reopen, there was discourse about whether a store haunted by a tragedy of this magnitude should go back to business as usual or be memorialized.
Joy Shepard Harrington, a witness of the shooting, told News4Jax she and her husband witnessed 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter enter the Dollar General Aug. 26 and open fire inside. Harrington and her husband, who live by the store, said they are reminded of the sounds of gunfire ringing off every time they drive by.
“That was a horrible day. If you never lived through nothing like that, you don’t want to,” said Harrington. The trauma of the whole incident made her decide to never step foot in that Dollar General again.
Shoppers at Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, N.Y. faced the same dilemma when it reopened two months after 10 Black people were fatally shot by Peyton Gendron in a racially motivated massacre on May 14, 2022. It was among the area’s main grocery stores in what was otherwise a food desert, CNN reported.
Despite it being a vital resource, residents were still fearful of stepping foot in the store after the shooting.
“It’s going to take us a long time to get over this. It really is. We’re living, breathing human beings. A lot of us are still having nightmares,” said Rose Marie Wysocki, Tops produce manager, via CNN.
Folks in both communities have expressed discomfort in walking the same aisles in which innocent lives were taken in acts of racist hate.