Teen gunman ‘live-streamed mass shooting’
SUSPECTED WHITE SUPREMACIST IN ‘RACIALLY MOTIVATED’ ATTACK
BUFFALO: A suspected teenage white supremacist has shot 10 people dead at a US supermarket in a “racially motivated” attack he livestreamed on camera, authorities said.
Payton Gendron, 18, who was wearing body armour and a helmet, was arrested after the massacre, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told a news conference.
The teen gunman is accused of shooting four people in the carpark of the Tops Friendly supermarket in Buffalo, upstate New York, three of them fatally.
He then went inside and continued firing, Commissioner Gramaglia said. Four of the victims were store employees, authorities said.
The security guard “engaged the suspect, fired multiple shots,” but the gunman shot him.
“He exited his vehicle. He was very heavily armed. He had tactical gear. He had a tactical helmet on,” Commissioner Gramaglia said.
“He had a camera that he was livestreaming what he was doing,”
Investigators believe the gunman may have been streaming the shooting through a camera affixed to his helmet.
Gendron allegedly had a racial slur scrawled on his automatic rifle.
A spokesman for streaming service Twitch confirmed to AFP the shooter used the service to broadcast the attack.
Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo field office, told the news conference the shooting was being investigated as a hate crime.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia described the attack as “pure evil.” Tops Friendly Markets released a statement saying: “We are shocked and deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.”
Gendron comes from a town 300km away from the shooting.
Barefoot, masked and wearing a paper smock, he told the judge he understood the charges against him and said he was not guilty at an arraignment.
Police said 11 of those shot were black, with the other two white, and suggested Gendron had walked through the supermarket looking for specific people to target.