City Grill restaurant massacre highlights need for restraint

Wedding anniversaries are supposed to be joyous occasions and not grief-bearing events. The City Grill restaurant in Main Street, Buffalo, New York is described by travel guides as “a downtown grill that attracts an electric crowd, from business people power-lunching to white-tie theatregoers in the evening.” Unfortunately today in Buffalo, a small wedding anniversary party has proven to be the curtain raiser of not just the formal anniversry party, but also several funerals, many tears and much grief. The passionate owners of the City Grill restaurant, Scott and Jenny Rossi have slaved away since taking over the establishment in 2009, to upgrade it and solidify its reputation as an eating house of note. Today, their efforts are at risk of vanishing, all because of a shooting, driven by a moment of argument, madness and anger, by one or more deranged minds


It is sad to read that seven people were shot in the early hours of the morning in Main Street, Buffalo, outside of the popular City Grill. It becomes sadder that four of them died and that one of the deceased is the host of the party.


Whatever altercations we find ourselves embroiled in, it is high time people learnt to restrain themselves. For how long shall we read of passion killings and suicides, driven by fits of intense anger, hatred or jealousy? Some take it upon themselves to shoot anything and anyone in sight at the slightest provocation. We hope and pray that police chief Dennis Richards and his men get to the bottom of the matter and bring the shooter or shooters to book. We certainly pray and wish a speedy physical and emotional recovery to the rest of the wedding party, some of whom lie in pain at the Buffalo General Hospital and Erie County Medical Centre. Restraint, restraint, we need to exercise more and more of it as the world becomes more and more volatile.