On April 27, 2024, at about 12:30 p.m., handymen Babul Meah, 59, and his co-worker Abu Yousuf arrived to begin repairs on a house on Zenner Street in Buffalo that was believed to be vacant. A homeless man, Dale O. Cummings, was squatting in the upper apartment and opened fire on the two men with an illegal rifle as they entered. Yousuf died on the front porch; Meah was critically injured, taken to a nearby hospital, and later died of his wounds. Authorities described the shooting as unprovoked, vicious, and cold-blooded.

Police initially treated the scene as a barricaded subject and deployed SWAT before obtaining a search warrant and entering the home, which was then empty. A receipt found at the house led investigators to surveillance images later tied to tips identifying Cummings. He was located the next day carrying a backpack with a loaded rifle and a high-capacity magazine; forensic testing linked that weapon to the killings and DNA on the rifle matched Cummings. Meah had lived in Maryland for 30 years and was buried there; both victims were mourned by Buffalo’s Bangladeshi community.

Does anyone have information about Meah’s work on Zenner Street or saw activity at the house around April 27, 2024?