The gunman who killed 10 people in the Buffalo supermarket attack has been targeted by authorities According to Reuters

By Jenna Zucker

BUFFALO, NY (Reuters) – New York authorities on Sunday were investigating how an 18-year-old white man, who the governor said had been targeted by authorities since high school, can shoot 10 people dead in a Negro neighborhood grocery store.

The suspect, Payton Gendron, turned himself in to police Saturday at a Buffalo, New York store, following what authorities called an act of “racially motivated violent extremism.” He appears to have published a racist manifesto on the internet.

“The evidence we have discovered so far is infallible this is an absolute racist hate crime that should be prosecuted as a hate crime,” said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told reporters on Sunday.

Officials said the 11 people hit were Black and two white. The racial segregation of the dead was not clarified.

The Buffalo shooting follows other racially motivated mass killings in recent years, including the attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead in October 2018 and the October 2018 shooting. spa gun in Atlanta in March 2021, in which a white man killed eight people, was aimed at Asians.

Authorities say Gendron drove to Buffalo from his home hours away to launch the afternoon attack, which he broadcast in real time on the social networking platform Twitch, an epidemic. live video service owned by Amazon.com (NASDAQ:).

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the gun used in the killings was legally purchased but was illegally modified with a high-capacity magazine.

On Sunday, several dozen community members held an emotional vigil for the victims outside the Tops grocery store. Nearby, at True Bethel Baptist Church, a reverend led a solemn service for a crowd of worshipers, including some of the victims’ families and some of those who had been at the store on Sunday. the time of the shooting.

One is Charles Everhart Sr., 65, whose nephew Zaire Goodman, 20, works at the store. Goodman was shot in the neck but survived.

Everhart said: “He was pushing the cart back to the store and he was one of the first to get hit.

RACIST MANIFESTO

A 180-page manifesto circulated online Saturday, attributed to author Gendron, outlining the “Great Alternative Theory” – a racist conspiracy theory that claims whites are being bullied replaced by minorities in the United States and other countries.

“This manifesto tells us everything and that’s what gives us chills,” Hochul told CNN on Sunday.

Another document circulating online, apparently written by Gendron, outlines a to-do list for the attack, including cleaning the gun and checking out the live stream.

A spokesperson for the Erie County District Attorney’s office declined to comment on the documents.

Hochul told ABC News on Sunday that Gendron had come under the radar of authorities “about what he wrote in high school,” without elaborating.

The governor said an investigation into the massacre would focus on how Gendron managed to get away with it when he was made aware of and made threats by authorities.

“I want to know what people knew and when they knew it,” she said.

Hochul told reporters she was disappointed that the suspect had live-streamed his attack on social media, which she blamed on organizing a “madness” of violent extremist ideology. force.

These stores must be more vigilant in monitoring content on social media, she said.

Social media and streaming platforms like Twitch, which said they removed the stream in less than two minutes, have struggled with controlling violent and extremist content for years.

A Twitch spokesperson said: “Users have been indefinitely suspended from our service and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring any accounts that replay content. this content”.

Gendron, from the town of Conklin, New York, near the Pennsylvania border, was charged hours after the state court shooting with first-degree murder, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. not pardoned, Erie County said. Attorney John Flynn.

Gendron has pleaded not guilty and is expected to return to court May 19. He was on suicide watch and isolated from other detainees on Sunday, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said. know.

Sharon Doyle, a 55-year-old security guard with the Erie County Public Library, led the song “Black Lives Matter, my life things,” at the morning ceremony.

“We all went in these Tops. I was scared to even go to Walmart (NYSE:) last night,” Doyle said. “I have to go to work tomorrow and I’m so scared.”

Stephen Belongia, FBI special agent in charge of the bureau’s Buffalo field office, said the attack will be investigated as both a hate crime and an act of “racially motivated violent extremism.” according to federal law.

US President Biden criticized the shooting as “abominable to the very fabric of this nation” in a statement Saturday.