A graphic video has emerged showing a possible suspect in the
Tops Market shooting in Buffalo, New York. You can see it via a link below, but be aware that it's very disturbing because it shows what appear to be bodies lying on the ground outside.
A racist and anti-Semitic manifesto and a Twitch livestream were attributed online to the gunman, but authorities have not verified those accounts.
NBC New York reported that the gunman carried "a rifle and wore military-style gear or a type of body armor." Buffalo Police confirmed
at a press conference the suspect was live-streaming video.
The suspect has been identified as 18-year-old Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York, about three hours east of Buffalo.
According to the Buffalo News,
10 people were murdered by the suspect, and three others wounded, two critically. Police said three others were wounded. Of the 10 who were killed, four were employees of the store and the others were customers.
"It's like walking onto a horror movie, but everything is real. It is Armageddon-like," a police source told the newspaper. "It is so overwhelming."
The manifesto contains a Q and A, including the question, "Why did you target those people?" The answer: "They are an obvious, visible, and large group of replacers. From a culture with higher fertility rates and strong, robust traditions that seek to occupy my peoples lands and ethnically replace my own people. It would have eased me if I knew all the blacks I would be killing were criminals or future criminals, but then I realized all black people are replacers just by existing in White countries."
Heavy is not embedding the video because it is so graphic. The
graphic video, which you can see at the previous link if you want, showed a possible suspect being taken into custody by law enforcement officers. There were unconfirmed reports he was dressed in military gear. The suspect is not identified. The motive is not clear, nor is the number of victims.
Comment: Axios
reports:
The FBI is investigating the mass shooting that left 10 people dead in a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, as a hate crime and a case of "racially motivated violent extremism," said Stephen Belongia, the special agent in charge of the FBI Buffalo field office.
Driving the news: Erie County Sheriff John Garcia called the attack a "straight-up racially motivated hate crime" after the alleged shooter, an 18-year-old white man, drove from "hours away" in tactical gear and opened fire in the store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo on Saturday afternoon.
- Trini Ross, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York, also said the shooting would be investigated as a hate crime.
The suspect was identified in court as Payton Gendron from Conklin, New York, per the Erie County district attorney's office. He pleaded not guilty to murder in the first degree. Buffalo is a more than 200-mile drive from Conklin and police said he'd traveled "many hours" to conduct the attack.
- Law enforcement confirmed the suspect was livestreaming the shooting.
- 13 people in total were shot, 3 of whom are expected to survive. Eleven of the 13 people were Black, police said.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told NBC on Sunday that the suspect "drove here with the express purpose of taking Black lives."
- Tops operations manager Shonnell Harris told the Buffalo News that the shooter was a white man wearing camouflage. "He looked like he was in the Army," Harris said.
- Police said a security guard fired at the shooter as he entered the store but due to the shooter's body armor, the bullet was not able to stop him. The security guard, described by police as "beloved," was later killed.
- Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC on Sunday that the suspect was in Buffalo a day before the shooting to "scope out the area, to do a little reconnaissance work on the area before he carried out his evil, sickening act."
The latest: Mayor Brown on Sunday called on the federal government to pass "sensible" gun control laws and to end hate speech on the internet.
The first page of his manifesto includes the Nazi Black Sun (also used by Azov Battalion in Ukraine).
Like Brenton Tarrant's, the manifesto is part far-right conspiracy thinking, part 4chan trolling:
Meanwhile, this should be kept in mind:
Comment: Abbott Nutrition is hardly going to readily admit the deadly bacteria found at its plant is connected with the death of two children.