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Memorials continue to grow outside Tops on Jefferson Avenue

Many neighbors continue to stop by at least five of them. Today, the Bills, Sabres, and Bandits also paid their respects with flowers and prayers.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — To an 18-year-old gunman, they were just names. 

To Buffalo's Jefferson neighborhood, the 10 lives lost on Saturday were everything. 

"Why would somebody come over in the community and kill innocent people for no reason," said Yvette Mack.

Mack grew up in the neighborhood and would sometimes visit Tops 3 or 4 times a day. 

"I come all day and they'd be like 'Yvette don't get in any trouble,'" she said. 

When she wasn't joking around with employees there, Mack would be talking to 52-year-old Margus Morrison, a bus aide at First Student who was one of those taken too soon. 

"I was just devastated," Mack said. 

While the memorials continue to grow around the Jefferson Avenue Tops, neighbors also reflect on just what the store meant to their own families over the years. 

"My son used to work at this Tops when he was 15-years-old," said Monique Hatton, who lives in the area. "He loved working here and they loved my son."

Hatton is now expressing her love by volunteering with the Peacemakers to do whatever she can for her community.

The Bills, Sabres, and Bandits showed it to the victims through flowers and prayer on Wednesday morning, while New Jersey's Tristate Canine Response Team is using six emotional support dogs to provide the most important thing for victims' families, Tops employees, neighbors, and first responders. 

"To be able to breathe, be able to relax," said Janice Campbell, founder of the team. "We're all crisis counselors. We came from Florida, New Jersey, and Delaware."

They'll be in town through Friday to show support. 

Support is what this community needs. It's what Buffalo needs. 

But some say we must also try harder to rid it of any hate.

"When I come out, I see the love, but it will never bring the people back," Mack said. 

So memorials won't be all that's left of the ones we love.

"If we can come together and do that, the community would be greater. The world would be greater," Hatton said. 

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