10 killed in racially motivated shooting at store in Buffalo
11 out of 13 shot were Black; White supremacist shooter live-streamed attack
Ten people were killed during a mass shooting Saturday afternoon at a Buffalo grocery store in what law enforcement officials described as a racially motivated hate crime.
Law enforcement authorities said that Payton Gendron, an 18-year old White man, approached the store located in a predominantly Black neighbourhood and opened fire on shoppers and employees, shooting 13 people including a security guard.
Attacker surrenders
Gendron surrendered to police outside the store. Later Saturday, he was charged with first-degree murder and held without bail. He pleaded not guilty.
Stephen Belongia, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo field office, said law enforcement officials were investigating the shooting as a hate crime and a case of racially motivated violent extremism. Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said 11 of the 13 people shot were Black.
Gramaglia added that the gunman, who was heavily armed and wearing tactical gear, used a camera to livestream the attack and shot several victims in the parking lot before entering the store.
The grocery’s longtime security guard fired back, but the gunman’s body armour repelled the shot, and the guard was killed in the encounter, Gramaglia said. He called the security guard a “hero.” Four of those killed were store employees and six were customers, law enforcement officials said.
Gendron grew up in Conklin, a New York town more than 200 miles away from Buffalo near the city of Binghamton. The gunman was not known to law enforcement, John Flynn, the Erie County district attorney, said.
Saturday’s shooting echoes the March 2021 mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado, in which 10 people, including a police officer, were killed at a King Soopers grocery store.