Buffalo shootings bring back painful memories in Jeffersontown

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Three years and seven months has passed since a hate-filled gunman tried unsuccessfully to enter the doors of the predominantly Black church First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown. The insecurity from that brush with danger has never gone away.

“It triggers a whole another conversation about how do we get ourselves as secure and safe as possible,” Billy Williams, First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown administrator said. “And unfortunately, seems like these incidents appear way too often.”

In the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting in Buffalo, where a white gunman targeted and killed Black customers at a supermarket, the church is now reviewing its security procedures, wondering if everything possible is being done to protect the congregation from a hate-driven attack.

“It brings it all back again,” Williams said. “Even to the point where we are now, earlier this morning, having some discussions about how do we continue to refine the security process. How do we continue to do everything we can to keep both team members and members safe when they come to the house of God?”

In 2018, the gunman found the church doors locked and left the property.

He drove to a nearby supermarket where he killed Black shoppers Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones.

As he left the scene, he told a bystander, “whites don’t kill whites.”

Jeffersontown shoppers on Monday were mindful of the Buffalo attack.

“I think about what happened 4 years ago and it crosses my mind,” Robert Williams said. “It just makes you really pay attention. It was just devastating what happened. And you’ve just really got to watch what’s going on around you.”

“You can’t walk in fear,” Brittany Brown said. “What happened here and happened in Buffalo, it just really shows you you’re not safe nowhere.”

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