Andrew Cuomo compares Buffalo mass shooting to lynching

Disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo told congregants Sunday he was “sickened” by the racist mass shooting and compared it to “lynchings,” as he made a case for bolstering federal gun control laws in his first public appearance in two months.

During an 11-minute speech at Buffalo’s True Bethel Baptist Church, the scandal-scarred former chief executive compared the massacre to the Klu Klux Klan’s extrajudicial killings.

“I was sickened by what happened here in Buffalo,” he said less than two miles from the supermarket where avowed white supremacist teenager Payton Gendron allegedly killed 10 and injured three others.

“It was so shocking, it was so sad, it was so disgusting what happened here in Buffalo,” he added. “My condolences to the families of the deceased, the wounded, and I give my condolences to every black family in Buffalo, because every black family was attacked and every black family is a victim.”

Gendron — an 18-year-old who posted a white supremacist manifesto online — shot eleven black people last week when he opened fire at Tops Friendly Market after performing reconnaissance at the grocery store ahead of his racially motivated rampage.

Cuomo Sunday morning said the mass shooting he is accused of committing harkens back to “the old days.”

“People are dead just because of the color of their skin,” he said. “It couldn’t be more ugly, because we wanted to believe that this type of activity was a stain in America’s past and had no place in the present. But this race-based mass shooting goes back to the old days.

“It’s like the lynchings,” Cuomo went on. “Instead of a noose, they use an assault rifle.”

“Years ago, they hid under white hood; today, they hide in the anonymity of the Internet.”

The May 14 massacre, the former governor said, shows that there is a “cancer” that has been “spreading” across the country.

“We must stop this cancer from spreading, and we can,” he said.

Cuomo’s Sunday morning address was his third public appearance since resigning in August 2021 under threat of impeachment amid several substantiated sexual harassment allegations and other scandals.

The 64-year-old Democrat emerged in March for the first time since stepping down at a Brooklyn church to grouse about the political climate in which “cancel culture” has gone too far, and “political sharks” supposedly driving him out of office. He made a second appearance less than two weeks later in the Bronx, where he indicated he is open to making a political comeback, declaring “I’m not going anywhere” and that he was “open to all options.”  

But though Cuomo has delivered a pair of speeches and released multiple campaign-style TV advertisements, he opted not to run in the Democratic gubernatorial primary against Gov. Kathy Hochul. If he wants to run as an independent in the November general election, he has until May 31 to collect and deliver the requisite petition signatures.

On Sunday, Cuomo gave no indication on if he will launch a potential comeback, as he lamented the “toxic” nature to contemporary politics and called for stricter national gun control measures while touting state-level gun control efforts he enacted during his time in office.

“First, we need to do something about these darn assault weapons — rifles that are designed for no other purpose except to kill the most number of human beings as quickly as possible,” he said.”

“No more excuses from our elected officials. I know it’s hard to ban assault weapons. We did it in New York. We passed the law. The toughest gun-safety law in the nation,” he added. “We got it done, and now it’s time for the federal government to get it done. State laws aren’t enough.”

“We need federal action. Ban these assault weapons and ban them now.”

Cuomo said he hopes last weekend’s racism-fueled mass shooting can prompt “a moment of change so that the Tops massacre is not just another on the list, but is the last one on the list, and [so] that our brothers and sisters did not die in vain.”

Also Sunday, Cuomo slammed unnamed political leaders for aligning themselves with racist extremists and “fanning the flames of hate” like segregationist Bull Connor of Alabama.

“They are purposely fomenting hate groups by saying blacks and Latinos and immigrants are here to replace the whites,” he said, referring to the “replacement theory” that undergirded the shooter’s twisted beliefs. “And an elected official who supports these groups is no better than a modern day Bull Connor.”