BUFFALO, N.Y. — The hurt that the Buffalo community is feeling won’t go away any time soon.
It’s a pain that so many communities are reliving nationwide, following Saturday’s mass shooting.
Three years ago, Dion Green, his fiancé and his dad were out in Dayton, OH when a shooter opened fire. Nine people were killed and 17 were injured in 32 seconds.
When he heard about Buffalo’s tragedy, he had flashbacks to that night and knew he had to come down.
“It really does bring visions back,” Green said. “I’m going on year three. I feel like I’m at day one again.”
An armored man walks in with an assault-style weapon and opens fire, cutting lives short.
Days later, the pain hasn’t subsided for Buffalo’s East Side.
“It is a roller coaster ride,” said Green. “And it’s a hard one.”
Years later, it’s the same story for Dion Green, who lived through a similar ordeal in 2019.
“I’m telling my dad to get up and get out of here because I’m like, ‘this is crazy,’” said Green.
But his dad, Derrick Fudge, didn’t get up. He was shot multiple times.
“I just grabbed on him and hugged him. I just kept telling him, ‘I love you’ so he can see his last words, his last word from his son,” recalled Green. “I can’t believe that was the last time I was going to see my father.”
Green turned his pain into purpose, traveling the country, pushing legislation and supporting survivors.
“As much as it sucks for us…had to lose our loved ones like, that our pain is what creates change,” Green remarked.
Reliving trauma isn’t easy.
“I wasn’t even here, but I can tell how the movement and motion of people running, the commotion just once the gun starts going off,” Green said while across the street from the Tops on Jefferson Ave. “Just knowing all that presence is…it’s kind of scary.”
He knows letting it out is part of healing, and talking to someone who knows what comes after the mass shooting means a lot.
“This don’t just affect one person,” he said. “It affects all and it takes a community to heal.”
The nation’s eyes are on Buffalo, but it won’t take long for them to look away.
“We’re strong when everybody’s around,” Green said. “But when everybody goes back to their life, that’s the ‘what if, what should I, what could I, why didn’t I do it this way,’ that survivor…that guilt starts to kick in.”
It’ll be then that the City of Good Neighbors will really need to stay together, to get through the grief, the trauma and the isolation.
“Whether it’s the community, the country, so you don’t be in that spot too long,” Green said. “So they pull you up out of that darkness because trust me, I went far down in that dark hole, but I have so many great people around me that pulled me out.”
Over past 24 hours, he met with community members and families of the victims.
He let them know he and his group, the Fudge Foundation, which is named after his dad, are here for them long-term.
“It sucks our network is growing bigger and bigger by the day, by the month, by the year,” Green said. “But all we continue to do is just keep fighting, and being present and being that voice whether it’s your statehouse, local or in D.C.,” Green said.
Green continues his work trying to better background checks, red flag checks and general common sense gun laws.
He and other families from the Dayton shooting have an ongoing lawsuit against the maker of the 100-round magazine used in that tragedy.
He plans to come back to the Buffalo area in the future as well, to help this community wherever he can.
