Justin Bieber’s gig at the Keybank Center in Buffalo on May 14, 2022, took place shortly after a gunman went on a rampage in a supermarket in the city, killing 10 people.
Bieber opened his show by holding a moment of silence for the victims of the shooting, which police called a “racially motivated hate crime.”
According to Rolling Stone, the singer told the audience: “As you know, there’s been tragedy in the city, but what we’re gonna do tonight, is gonna honor those people. … As we know, there’s so much division in this world. So much racial injustice. As you and I both know, racism is evil and it is diabolical. But what you and I get to do, we get to be the difference makers. We get to be the people who continue to have the conversations with our friends and our family and our loved ones. We continue to be allies.”
Bieber added a video of the gig to his Instagram page and wrote in the caption: “Racism will not prevail God does. We stand with you Buffalo and against this racist act of terror.”
Payton Gendron, 18, from Conklin, New York, was arrested in the aftermath of the killings. He was later arraigned and pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges.
Attorney General of New York Letitia James said the shooting was committed by a “sick, demented individual who was fueled [by] a daily diet of hate.” She added: “Let us come together as one and let us put aside any differences and let us all stand and remember the words of Dr. [Martin Luther] King, that love, only love, will overcome hate.”
