Buffalo suspect followed long trail to terror, officials say
By his own account, the suspected Buffalo supermarket gunman became a racist killer while bored online.
As investigators unpack the disturbing details of 18-year-old Payton Gendron’s alleged crimes, current and former law enforcement officials said he apparently hoped his shocking violence would draw attention from well beyond his hometown, Conklin, in upstate New York.
‘‘He’s telling us he wants to feel important. He wants to be remembered. He wants to be relevant in life, but he won’t be. He’s not relevant,’’ said Katherine Schweit, a former federal agent who started the FBI’s activeshooter programme.
At the end of his senior year, someone called the state police to report that Gendron had made alarming comments threatening to shoot up graduation-related events, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Gendron’s statements were enough of a concern to authorities on June 8, 2021, that they took him into custody and then to a hospital for amental health evaluation.
One person familiar with the investigation said the teen had been asked at school about his future plans, and replied ‘‘murdersuicide’’. It was enough to raise concerns, this person said, but not enough to take further as an investigation. The incident now stands out as a potential key in understanding his path from a seemingly quiet and unremarkable childhood to accused mass murderer.
In a rambling, 180-page declaration that authorities believe Gendron wrote and posted online, he labels himself a white supremacist and his planned attack an act of terrorism, adding that he supports neo-Nazism and revels in anti-Semitism.
The document describes months of planning leading up to the attack, what appears to be his legal purchase of a Bushmaster rifle months earlier and recommendations on weaponry and body armour.
FBI agents have searched the suburban house in Conklin where Gendron lived with his parents and two brothers.
Agents and local police are assembling a detailed timeline of everything he did in the days just before the shooting. Already facing a state murder charge, Gendron is being investigated for possible federal crimes, and in similar cases in the past, federal prosecutors have sought the death penalty. The other important prong of the FBI’s investigation is understanding the long-simmering psychological impulses that allegedly drove Gendron to commit the most deadly mass shooting so far this year.
‘‘The answers to the most important questions aren’t in Buffalo, they’re 200 miles away in Conklin,’’ said Peter Ahearn, former head of the FBI’s Buffalo field office. ‘‘The motivation is hate, but what drove him to this? . . . They need to understand that. Right now this is a wide open wound. Those answers will help with understanding, but it will take time.’’ – Washington Post