Harold McClain, 20, was a Black man whose life ended in a burst of gunfire inside a store on Genesee Street in Buffalo, New York, in mid-January 2011. Some public listings place the killing on January 19, while federal case summaries describing the same Genesee Street store shooting place it on January 11, but both accounts center the violence in the same corridor and the same kind of sudden, close-quarters encounter—an errand or a stop at a neighborhood shop turning into a fatal moment.
At first glance, the case reads like many city homicides: a young man slain, the early narrative offering little about a suspect. In at least one public database entry tied to Buffalo Police Department records, the suspect is listed as unknown and the case is marked unsolved, with the incident location simply given as Genesee Street and a request for anyone with information to contact investigators.
Behind the scenes, though, the killing was pulled into a wider federal investigation of the Bailey Boys, a violent street gang operating in Buffalo. Prosecutors said gang member Tyrone Brown was indicted on August 1, 2012, along with other members and associates, and that the indictment alleged Brown murdered a victim identified in federal filings as Harold McCain in January 2011—the surname differing by one letter from the McClain spelling found in some public listings. The investigation’s pressure rippled outward: Michael Acoff was accused of inventing a story for a federal grand jury about having firsthand knowledge of the murder, including claiming the alleged killer called him afterward and that he picked the person up; prosecutors said Acoff later admitted he had not received such a call, had not picked anyone up, and had learned details from someone else.
Years later, the Genesee Street store shooting was no longer just a homicide file—it had become one of the violent acts prosecutors pointed to in a racketeering case. In September 2016, federal prosecutors announced that Brown pleaded guilty to RICO conspiracy in connection with two deadly shootings, including the Genesee Street store killing, and in January 2017 they announced he was sentenced to 264 months in prison. Prosecutors also described the broader sweep of the case as an investigation into multiple murders and attempted murders attributed to the gang, stating that 11 people were arrested and that eight defendants had been convicted at that point.
