On a September evening in 1980, 14-year-old Glenn Dunn, a Black male, was fatally shot outside a supermarket on Genesee Street in Buffalo, New York. Dunn was in a vehicle when the gunfire erupted and was declared dead at the scene on September 22nd. His killing was the first in a series of racially targeted attacks that soon spread to Niagara Falls and New York City.

Investigators linked the murders by .22-caliber shell casings left at the scenes; witnesses to the initial shooting described the assailant as a young white man. The perpetrator, Army private Joseph Christopher, later carried out stabbings in Manhattan and was arrested in January 1981 at Fort Benning, Georgia. Christopher was convicted for the murders of Glenn Dunn, Harold Green, and Emmanuel Thomas after complex legal proceedings that included questions about his competency. He later said he had committed 13 killings and died in prison from a rare form of breast cancer on March 1, 1993.

Did anyone in Buffalo in 1980 have information about Glenn Dunn’s last evening or remember the area around the Genesee Street supermarket?