Buffalo bloodbath

August 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Man charged in killings outside eatery

Associated Press

BUFFALO, N.Y.

Eight people leaving a party at a downtown Buffalo restaurant were shot early Saturday, four of them fatally, including a Texas man who had returned to his hometown to celebrate his first wedding anniversary, police said.

Managers had decided to close the City Grill in the city’s business district after an altercation inside. The victims were leaving at about 2:30 a.m. when a man who had been inside began shooting, police said.

“There were verbal things going on. Management apparently chose to close down and have everybody leave the restaurant,” Chief of Detectives Dennis Richards said. “People were leaving when this shooting happened.”

Keith Johnson, 25, of Buffalo was charged Saturday afternoon with four counts of second-degree murder and could face more charges. Johnson was in custody late Saturday afternoon.

Police didn’t know whether Johnson was involved in the earlier altercation and asked witnesses to speak up.

“We need people to come forward,” said Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda, who estimated there were 100 people at the scene when police arrived.

The group was attending a party in advance of a more formal anniversary celebration scheduled for later Saturday, authorities said. The couple, a 30-year-old man and his wife, married in Texas a year ago and had returned to celebrate with Buffalo-area friends and family, authorities said. The wife was not injured.

“An occasion that should have been a joyous one, a happy one, turned tragic,” Mayor Byron Brown said Saturday near the restaurant, a popular stop for office workers during the week and people attending theater and sporting events at night.

The dead included two men, the 30-year-old and a 26-year-old, and two women, who were 27 and 32, Richards said. Three were pronounced dead at the scene and the fourth died at a hospital.

Authorities did not release the victims’ identities. Raymond Wilhite said his 32-year-old daughter, Tiffany Wilhite, was among those killed.

“A senseless, random killing,” said Wilhite, who returned to the restaurant a few hours after the shooting. “This kind of thing just has to stop.”

The other woman was identified as Shawntia McNeil, who was Wilhite’s cousin.