Tamika Harper, niece of Victim of the buffalo shooting Geraldine Talley, told CNN she was feeling “angry” after Saturday’s deadly rampage. The woman said she felt like their hearts “had just been ripped out of our bodies.”
“My aunt is the most beautiful woman in the world. She would take her shirt off for anyone. Anyone,” she told CNN’s Victor Blackwell.
Harper describes how she went to the supermarket shortly after the shooting happened, and discovered her aunt was in the building during the event shortly after arriving at the scene.
“I continued on to Tops. On the way here, a police car pulled up – pulled up behind them. ‘Oh my, like why did he pull me over.” So I passed and thought I was being pulled over, and he passed me… So here I go. And when I get here, I see the police, the firemen, the ambulance, I’m like, ‘oh, my God, what’s going on? ‘ So as I was saying that, my daughter-in-law said, ‘It’s an active shooting at the Tops right now.’ And I said, ‘What?’ So right after she said that, I got a call from my mom, and she cried, and I said, “Mom, I’m fine, I’m okay. I can’t make it to the store. I Harper told CNN.
“She said, ‘No, I’m not, but Aunt Gerry’s in there… [they] could not find her. So I immediately started calling her non-stop. I started praying to my God because I knew God would help me through this. I knew God would get my aunt out of there alive because she was such a nice person. She doesn’t deserve this, so I know she’s going to walk out of that store. I knew she was going to walk out there, but unfortunately she didn’t. She does not. She’s not,” Harper continued.
Kaye Johnson, who is also Talley’s niece, said she felt “absolutely devastated”.
“Every time I close my eyes, I just imagine what my aunt’s last thoughts were. She didn’t get a chance to think, blinked, nothing at all. This is just devastating. All the families lost,” Johnson said.
Watch the full interview here:
