Buffalo shooting: Gunman targeted black victims on purpose, says mayor

Authorities believe the guy accused of killing ten people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, purposely chose a location with a large black population.

Payton Gendron, 18, allegedly drove more than 320 kilometers (200 miles) to carry out the attack.

The incident is being investigated as a racially motivated act of violent extremism.

According to Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, the suspect arrived with the intention of taking "as many black lives as possible."

Mr Gendron appears to have written a 180-page document in which he characterizes himself as a fascist and a white supremacist.

Questions have been raised about how he was able to carry out the attack despite prior warnings.

"I want to know what people knew and when they knew it," New York Governor Kathy Hochul told ABC News.

Mr Gendron had made "generalized threats" while still in high school, according to Buffalo Police Chief Joseph Gramaglia. He was admitted to the hospital for a day and a half for a mental health evaluation before being released.

Authorities do not appear to have been keeping an eye on him.

According to FBI Special Agent Steven Belongia, neither state police nor the FBI had any information on Mr Gendron. Meanwhile, when his name was ran through a national background check system, the gun store owner who sold him a semi-automatic rifle told many US publications that no alarm came up.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Letitia James of New York said her office would focus on extremist content on the internet.

"This was carried out by a sick, deranged guy who was fed a daily diet of hatred," she claimed.

The shooting has shocked the neighborhood. "It simply aches, why someone would do that," one person who attended a vigil on Sunday told Reuters.

Police stated 11 of the 13 victims shot were black. A dad buying cupcakes for his son's birthday and a woman shopping after seeing her husband in a nursing facility were among those reported murdered.

An all too familiar pattern

By Mike Wendling, BBC Trending

Christchurch, El Paso, Pittsburgh and now Buffalo - all places where racially-motivated assailants, radicalised online, have taken their ideology to deadly extremes.

The gunman in Buffalo, like ones before, live-streamed his violent rampage and left a so-called "manifesto" online. It details his extremist beliefs and is packed with cherry-picked statistics, conspiracy theories and internet memes.

The file contains reams of racist and anti-Semitic sludge along with straightforward admissions that the author is a fascist and a white supremacist.

If the author can be believed - as the document also clearly contains disinformation and attempts to trick reporters into reporting false stories - he was radicalised early on during the Covid pandemic, on extremist websites and message boards.

Like after the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, big social media companies will struggle to remove footage of the attack.

And surely the American debate over gun control will be reignited, however briefly.

But the underlying problem seems as intractable as ever: a worldwide network of young violent extremists, some of whom are motivated to launch deadly attacks against innocent people.

At around 14:30 EST (19:30 BST), the assailant, clad in military gear, drove into the parking park at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, where police claimed he had done "reconnaissance" the day before, and began livestreaming the carnage.

A security guard returned fire, but the gunman's bulletproof vest stopped one that injured him, according to authorities. After killing the guard, he stormed around the store, shooting at other customers.

Witnesses recounted situations that were horrifying. "It's like something out of a nightmare... you see it on TV, you hear about it on TV... but I never thought I'd be one of them," one remarked.

Mr Gendron was apprehended shortly after the attack and has pleaded not guilty to accusations of murder.

Although facts are still being confirmed, US President Joe Biden forcefully condemned racist extremism. He remarked, "We must all work together to address the bigotry that continues to stain America's soul."

The White House later announced that Mr. Biden and the First Lady will visit Buffalo on Tuesday to speak with local residents.

Saturday's shooting is expected to be the biggest mass shooting in the United States in 2022. In America, firearms are used in about 40,000 deaths per year, including suicides, and mass shootings are common.

Police in southern California say one person was killed and five others were injured in a shooting at a church in Orange County less than a day after the incident in New York state.

According to a local sheriff, a guy in his sixties was detained after other churchgoers tackled him and tied him up by the ankles with an extension cable.