Buffalo shooting victim Aaron Salter Jr.: A 'hero' security guard who sprung into action

The last full day Aaron Salter III spent with his father, his dad was trying to MacGyver a motorcycle. On Mother's Day. 

Six days later, Aaron Salter Jr. laid down his life to protect shoppers at Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, a heroic act that slowed the assault that would eventually cost Salter his life, along with nine others. 

But on that Mother’s Day, the elder Salter was being a dad, convinced he could get a stubborn motorcycle started if he only had a wire. Father and son had driven two 50cc motorcycles out to Smokin Joes Trading Post on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation, about 30 minutes from Salter’s home in Lockport. When they arrived, the younger Salter’s bike conked out. 

“He went into the inside of the motorcycle and he was like, ‘Oh, man, I wish I had a wire,’” his son recalled Monday. “He was sitting there trying to figure out how to take that situation and get them going again, even though he had nothing. He was trying to figure out how to jump-start them together.”

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A stranger with a jump-box got the motorcycle started, but that last best memory of his father is what Aaron Salter III’s mind goes to as his family prepares to bury him with honors later this week.

“Just seeing him in action, doing stuff like that is what I'm going to miss about him," he said. "Because even when something happened that wasn't supposed to happen, he was — just like what he did on Saturday, what he did with that shooter — just spring into action and try to figure out a way to make it work.”

“It's sad that that happened to him, because I know when he saw the guy, he probably knew he was outgunned, which is very unfortunate,” said Salter, 29.

Noticing the little things

Aaron Salter Jr. was used to seeing people coming and going. Working for three decades as a Buffalo traffic cop, that came with the territory. 

He'd see happy Sabres fans and sad Sabres fans, escort motorcades and funerals, and direct traffic all over town.

But in his final four years, after he retired as a cop and became a security guard at Tops on the city’s East Side, he made sure to note those comings and goings, to make a fuss, to notice new sneakers or a sharp outfit. The smallest details didn’t escape notice, and comment, always offered with a smile and a laugh.

Mention his name to Tops patrons and they beam. He had a way of making people's days.

Salter, 55, retired as a lieutenant from the Buffalo Police Traffic Division in 2018, having “earned his wings” as a motorcycle cop in his final years on the force, a source of great pride, his son remembers. Almost immediately, he was working at Tops, where his son says he was doing everything from security to making out the schedules to doing payroll. 

“Even in his retirement, he literally made Tops his priority,” his son said. "He made sure he was there and he was making sure that the store was safe at all times."

That's where he was at 2 p.m. on Saturday, when the store — the only grocery store in the vast East Side of the city and a community outpost for Buffalo's Black community — became the target of a gunman.

Salter fired multiple shots at the 18-year-old who police say had scouted the store with hate in his heart. But the guard's shots didn't penetrate the attacker's body armor. Salter was killed by return fire.

Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia called Salter "beloved" and "a hero in our eyes" for what he did on Saturday. Mayor Byron Brown told CNN: “He was a hero who tried to protect people in the store.”

Officer John Evans, president of the Buffalo PBA, called Salter — who raised his son and two daughters, Latisha, 30, and Tonya, 22, with his wife, Kim — “a solid guy.”

“If you knew him, you liked him,” Evans said “You could count on him.”

When the kids were growing up, the family would vacation at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, dubbed “The Rollercoaster Capital of the World,” and for years, until he got older and wiser, the Buffalo traffic cop would ride the coasters, too, his son remembered.

"He was a great dad," his son said.

There were other dad things.

“He made sure his house was nice, and he had a couple of cars, and he was living the dream,” his son said. He rebuilt a 1967 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, and loved his 2021 Dodge Durango Hellcat. He fancied himself an inventor and, inspired by rising gas prices, was working on prototypes to develop a process to fuel cars with water, called hydrogen-electrolysis. 

Since Saturday, strangers have been reaching out to Salter on Instagram, talking about his father's legacy, one that goes beyond his marriage and his children and his career in law enforcement.

"People are telling me that they used to be locals at the store and every time they would go into the store, he would talk to them, that he was always kind to them. And that really meant a lot, from a complete stranger, telling me that when they would go into the store, he made them feel safe.

"He was a stand-up guy," his son said.