10 killed in ‘racially motivated’ shooting in US
— A heavily armed 18-year-old man shot 10 people dead on Saturday at a Buffalo, New York grocery store in a “racially motivated” attack that he live-streamed on camera, authorities said.
The gunman, who was wearing body armor and a helmet, was arrested after the massacre, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told a news conference.
Gramaglia put the toll at 10 dead and three wounded. Eleven of the victims were African Americans.
The gunman shot four people in the parking lot of the Tops supermarket, three of them fatally, then went inside and continued firing, Gramaglia said.
Among those killed inside the store was a retired police officer working as an armed security guard.
The guard “engaged the suspect, fired multiple shots,” but the gunman shot him, Gramaglia said.
When police arrived, the shooter put the gun to his neck, but was talked down and surrendered, he added.
Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo field office, told the news conference that the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
“We are investigating this incident as both a hate crime and a case of racially motivated violent extremism,” Belongia said.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia described the attack as “pure evil.”
“It was straight up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community,” he said.
John Flynn, the district attorney for Erie County, where Buffalo is located, said the suspect would be arraigned on charges of murder in the first degree, which carries a sentence of life without parole.
Flynn said the shooter used an “assault weapon” — a term that can apply to types of rifles and shotguns in New York — but did not specify which kind.
Asked if the shooter streamed the killings on Twitch, a spokesperson for the service said that “the user has been indefinitely suspended from our service.”
“We are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”
Byron Brown, the mayor of Buffalo — which is located in western New York, along the U.S. border with Canada — said the shooter “traveled hours from outside this community to perpetrate this crime.”