Police uncover gunman’s plan to continue killing spree

The teenager accused of a massacre at a Buffalo supermarket was just getting started, and had plans to take his anti-black attack to other parts of the city, authorities said yesterday.

Payton Gendron, 18, allegedly shot 13 people at the Tops Friendly Market on Sunday, killing 10 of them.

Police said Gendron was targeting black people, and even had the N-word painted on the barrel of the modified assault weapon that was used in the deadly attack.

‘‘We have uncovered information that if he escaped the supermarket, he had plans to continue his attack,’’ Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News. ‘‘He had plans to continue driving down Jefferson Ave to shoot more black people ... possibly go to another store (or) location.’’

Gendron, who is white, travelled hours from his hometown of Conklin and came dressed in body armour and a tactical helmet, authorities said. He was specifically targeting black people, according to an online manifesto in his name, and chose Buffalo since the city had the ‘‘highest black percentage that is close enough to where I live,’’ Gendron allegedly wrote.

Not only did Gendron use his 180-page Google Doc to spew racist venom, he gave detectives and anyone else who happened to read his ramblings a step-by-step game plan of his attack, complete with a detailed explanation of how he acquired his rifles and modified the murder weapon.

Gendron, who livestreamed the shooting with a camera mounted to the protective helmet he wore, planned ahead for the maximum amount of damage, officials said.

In his rambling screed, the suspect said he deliberately loaded heavier rounds to use in an initial volley to penetrate glass at the front of the supermarket where he expected a security guard would be keeping watch.

He then loaded lighter rounds deeper in the magazine so he could use them to target shoppers and other victims in the store.

Gendron apparently knew enough about ammunition to know that lighter bullets travel faster and can tear through bodies more easily and cause more damage.

Gendron eventually surrendered after the shooting, talked down by two officers after putting his own gun to his neck. He was arrested at the scene, and is being held without bail. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

The US Justice Department is investigating the shooting as a ‘‘hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism’’.

Describing himself as a fascist, a white supremacist and an antiSemite, Gendron allegedly regurgitated tropes of the ‘‘great replacement theory,’’ which claims that white people are being marginalised and wiped out.

The gun shop owner who sold the Bushmaster XM-15 to the suspect said his customer had passed a background check and raised no red flags.

But a security guard at the supermarket thought something was amiss two months ago, when

Gendron was apparently doing reconnaissance for his deadly mission.

‘‘I’ve seen you go in and out ... What are you doing?’’ the guard asked Gendron on March 8, according to a separate, nearly 600-page document posted online, ostensibly by Gendron, that was obtained by The Washington Post.

He told the guard he was ‘‘collecting consensus data’’ and then left, noting, ‘‘In hindsight that was a close call,’’ according to the Post.

The 589-page document was posted April 29, referring to the supermarket as ‘‘attack area 1’’ and describing his plan to hit two other locations and gun down more than three dozen people in all.

Eleven of the 13 people shot at the weekend were black. Victims ranged in age from 20 to 86. – TNS