Dave Chappelle closed out his set on Sunday at Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo by announcing that the proceeds from the show will go to the families of the 10 victims of the racially motivated mass shooting that occurred on May 14th.
“He said, and I’m paraphrasing, I came here to Buffalo to recognize the victims and for these families,” said Kevin Sweeney, director of marketing and communications for Shea’s Performing Arts Center.
Chappelle’s show was extremely last minute, with tickets having gone on sale Thursday morning. Chappelle ended up selling out the 3,019 seat venue in just an hour. Among those in attendance were members from the families of the 10 victims of May 14ths mass shooting. They were personally invited by Chappelle.
Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old white supremacist, is currently facing 10 counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of second-degree murder as a hate crime, 3 counts of attempted murder as a hate crime, one for domestic terrorism motivated by hate, and a weapons charge for the murder of 10 Black people in the parking lot of a Tops grocery store in Buffalo.
After the mass shooting, authorities found Gendron’s diary where he wrote about wanting to livestream an attack on Black people. The entries in the journal also read that Gendron targeted that specific grocery store because many Black people shopped there.
