The mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York, was the latest in a wave of racism and hate that has swept over grocery stores across the United States in the past decade. According to an NBC News analysis of FBI hate crime data, the number of hate crimes at grocery stores steadily increased since 2016 and was greatly accelerated at the start of Covid, as politics and mask mandates collided in one of the few public gathering spaces still open during 2020.
