Buffalo attack: At least 10 killed in 'racially-motivated' mass shooting at supermarket in New York

[MenInG]

At least 10 people have been killed and three others injured in a mass shooting at a supermarket in the US city of Buffalo, New York state.

Police said the suspected gunman was taken into custody after the attack which is being investigated as "a racially-motivated hate crime".

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said that 11 of the 13 people who were shot were black.

"This was pure evil," said Erie County Sheriff John Garcia in a news conference. "It was straight up racially-motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community."

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said: "It is my sincere hope that this individual, this white supremacist who just perpetrated a hate crime on an innocent community, will spend the rest of his days behind bars. And heaven help him in the next world as well."

Court papers named the suspect as Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, New York. He was arraigned and charged with first-degree murder charges hours after the shooting, to which he pleaded not guilty.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the suspect "travelled hours" to the Tops Friendly Market in Jefferson Avenue, about 3 miles (5km) north of downtown Buffalo.

Investigators believe the man may have been live-streaming the shooting and are looking into whether he had posted a manifesto online.

The Buffalo News said the attack had been carried out by a gunman dressed in body armour and armed with a high-powered rifle.

Officials said the man entered the supermarket and opened fire, with witnesses having reported hearing dozens of shots being fired.

SWAT teams rushed to the scene.

Braedyn Kephart and Shane Hill, both 20, told the Associated Press they pulled into the car park just as the gunman was attempting to leave the scene.

They said he was a white male in his late teens or early twenties and wore a full camouflage outfit, a black helmet and carried what appeared to be a rifle.

"He was standing there with the gun to his chin. We were like what the heck is going on? Why does this kid have a gun to his face?" Mr Kephart said.

He said they saw him drop to his knees, adding: "He ripped off his helmet, dropped his gun, and was tackled by the police."

Will G, an employee at the Tops supermarket, told the Buffalo News he walked into the refrigerated section to put milk on the shelves about three minutes before the shooting.

"I just heard shots. Shots and shots and shots," he told the local paper. "It sounded like things were falling over."

A law enforcement official on the scene told the newspaper: "It's like walking onto a horror movie, but everything is real. It is Armageddon-like. It is so overwhelming."

A large police presence has shut down the area north of Jefferson Avenue at Northampton Street, Buffalo News reported.

New York governor Kathy Hochul tweeted that she was "closely monitoring the shooting" in her hometown, and said state officials have offered to help to local authorities.

SKY

 

[sweep_shot]

Murica!

These incidents can be prevented with appropriate gun laws but they are still stuck with their medieval 2nd amendment.

These far-right young white nationalists are present on Discord as well as places like 4Chan and 16Chan. Feds should monitor these places closely.

 

[Ryw]

Murica!

These incidents can be prevented with appropriate gun laws but they are still stuck with their medieval 2nd amendment.

These far-right young white nationalists are present on Discord as well as places like 4Chan and 16Chan. Feds should monitor these places closely.

Revenge time, get ready for similar kind of News in coming months, this stupidity will never end. Rip to all affected

 

[Bewal Express]

Absolute evil

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Murica!

These incidents can be prevented with appropriate gun laws but they are still stuck with their medieval 2nd amendment.

These far-right young white nationalists are present on Discord as well as places like 4Chan and 16Chan. Feds should monitor these places closely.

Gun laws aren't the problem, it's what motivates these attacks that should be discusssed.

 

[sweep_shot]

Gun laws aren't the problem, it's what motivates these attacks that should be discusssed.

What motivates these attackers are also present in Canada but we don't have many mass shootings in Canada.

Canadian gun laws are extremely strict. Assault rifles are banned here.

2nd amendment was reasonable during 18th century and 19th century but makes no sense in 21st century. Why should regular civilians have assault rifles? These should be banned.

 

[sweep_shot]

Revenge time, get ready for similar kind of News in coming months, this stupidity will never end. Rip to all affected

Yeah. Quite possible.

I personally think feds are not doing enough. This shooter threatened to shoot up a school last year but he wasn't arrested. He should've been locked up right there.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

What motivates these attackers are also present in Canada but we don't have many mass shootings in Canada.

Canadian gun laws are extremely strict. Assault rifles are banned here.

2nd amendment was reasonable during 18th century and 19th century but makes no sense in 21st century. Why should regular civilians have assault rifles? These should be banned.

Canada is like a little village compared to the US, can't really compare. Terrorists use knives and guns to kill people, will you ban those too?

 

[Hassaan HS]

Buffalo shooting: 'Bodies were everywhere'

Witnesses to a racially-motivated attack at a New York state supermarket have been describing the horrific moment an 18-year-old white man pulled out a gun and began a shooting spree that left 10 people dead.

The attacker, dressed in military gear, drove into the car park at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo at about 2.30pm (19:30 BST) and began livestreaming his rampage via a camera on his helmet.

"When I first saw him shooting he shot a woman, he shot a deacon, he shot another woman... and then he went in the store and he started shooting again," eyewitness Grady Lewis told reporters.

Katherine Crofton, a retired firefighter and doctor, told the local paper she had been playing with her dog and smoking a cigarette when she heard a shot from her front porch.

"I didn't see him at first, I turned around and I saw him shoot this woman," she said.

"She was just going into the store. And then he shot another woman. She was putting groceries into her car. I got down because I did not know if he was going to shoot me."

The suspected gunman has been identified in court documents as Payton Gendron, of Conklin, New York.

Of the 13 people shot, police said 11 were black. The authorities say it was a racially motivated attack in what is a predominantly black neighbourhood.

Inside the "packed" supermarket, operations manager Shonell Harris told Buffalo News she was putting out groceries when the shooting happened.

"I heard a noise, and then it got louder and closer, and everybody started running", she said.Hearing the gunshots, Ms Harris said she made for the back exit, and ran around to the front of the store to look for her daughter, who was also working inside the supermarket.

At the front of the store, she said she saw the gunman, clothed "like he was dressed for the army", shoot another person.

She then ran back around to the back exit, where she found her daughter. "I just grabbed her, I hugged her," she said.

"It's like a nightmare... you see this on TV, you hear about it on TV... but I never thought I would be one of them."

Three people were shot dead in the car park and the other seven were killed inside the supermarket, police said.

As the shooter entered the store, a security guard named by local media as Aaron Salter - a retired police officer - fired multiple shots, but the gunman's bulletproof vest stopped one that hit him, police said. He then killed the guard and stalked through the store firing at other people.

The local paper has named two others who died in the attack - supermarket customers Ruth Whitfield and Katherine Massey. A vigil was held for Ms Whitmore, 86, on Saturday night.

A church deacon who worked as a driver was also killed, Buffalo News reports.

Jennifer Tookes, who had been shopping in the store with her cousin when the shooting started, told NBC News that her cousin had hidden in the supermarket's freezer until the gunfire stopped.

Ms Tookes added that she saw three bodies lying outside the car park when she escaped outside: "One was right by the door. One man was by his car. Another girl was right there."

Ken Stephens, a member of a local anti-violence group who was at the scene, told the New York Times: "Bodies were everywhere."Witness Katherine Crofton said that after the shootings inside the supermarket, the gunman came outside.

"The guy walked out of the store, the cops were just screaming at him, and he just stood there," she said. "It was like he wanted them to shoot him."

The attacker was arrested by police and has been charged with first-degree murder.

Afterwards, local residents gathered at the scene. Among them was Marilyn Hanson, 60, who told The New York Times she had raced to the store after hearing the news to make sure her daughter, who lived nearby, was not hurt.

Finding her safe, Ms Hanson - who shops at the store often - said: "My daughter was so scared because that could've been me in that store."

"If a black man did this, he'd be dead, too," she added, referring to the fact that the suspect had surrendered and had been taken into custody by police.

A member of the local government council, Ulysees Wingo Sr, said most of the shoppers at the supermarket were black and that he knew some of the victims.

"This is the largest mass shooting to date in the city of Buffalo," he told reporters.

"I don't think anyone here in the city of Buffalo thought that something like this could ever happen, would ever happen."

Saturday's attack in Buffalo is thought to be the worst mass shooting so far in the US in 2022, and will also further inflame the bitter political battle about gun control in the US.

Some 40,000 deaths a year involve firearms in America, a figure that includes suicides.

Meanwhile, hate crimes in the US hit a 12-year high in 2020, with over 10,000 people reporting offences related to their race, gender, sexuality, religion or disability.

Crimes against Asian and black Americans in particular surged that year, FBI figures suggest - although as police are not mandated to submit hate crime data to the FBI, those numbers are thought likely to be an undercount.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61454989

 

[Robert]

What motivates these attackers are also present in Canada but we don't have many mass shootings in Canada.

Canadian gun laws are extremely strict. Assault rifles are banned here.

Also, socialised mental health care.

 

[James]

Disgusting and shocking.

So glad I was born in the UK.

 

[Champ_Pal]

American politics are totally polarized. You cannot trust any news source. RIP to all victims.

 

[James]

SKY

<b>Buffalo shooting “carried out by sick demented individual fuelled on diet of hate” who is now on suicide watch</b>

<I>The victims included a church deacon, a man at the store buying a birthday cake for his grandson, and an 86-year-old woman who had just visited her husband at a nursing home.</I>

A teenager accused of killing 10 people and injuring three others in a mass shooting at a US supermarket in the city of Buffalo is on suicide watch, officials say.

Payton Gendron is being detained separately from other individuals in a holding centre following the massacre on Saturday afternoon.

Eleven of the 13 people who were shot were black.

The 18-year-old suspect, who is white, was arraigned on first-degree murder charges hours after the shooting, to which he pleaded not guilty.

Authorities are calling the shooting an act of "violent extremism" motivated by racial hatred.

Police said the the suspect, of Conklin, New York, drove about 200 miles (320 km) from his home to the store and, wearing military gear, used a helmet camera to livestream the attack.

For at least two minutes, he broadcast the shooting on the streaming platform Twitch before the service ended his transmission.

The victims included a church deacon, a man at the store buying a birthday cake for his grandson, and an 86-year-old woman who had just visited her husband at a nursing home.

Police believe Gendron acted alone. Federal agents have interviewed the suspect's parents and have served multiple search warrants.

Federal authorities are still working to confirm the authenticity of a 180-page manifesto that was posted online, which detailed the plot and identified Gendron by name as the gunman, an official said.

Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, said the attack was committed by a "sick, demented individual who was fuelled (by) a daily diet of hate".

Ms James said her office will be investigating social media following the atrocity.

She added: "Let us come together as one and let us put aside any differences and let us all stand and remember the words of Dr (Martin Luther) King, that love, only love, will overcome hate."

The attack happened at the Tops Friendly Markets in Jefferson Avenue, about three miles (5km) north of downtown Buffalo in New York state.

According to police, the gunman began shooting in the car park before moving inside the supermarket. Four people were shot outside, including three fatally.

Security guard and retired police officer Aaron Salter fired multiple shots but none penetrated the gunman's armour. The perpetrator killed Salter and made his way through the aisles, shooting shoppers.

The gunman was confronted by police and put his rifle to his own neck, but then surrendered and dropped the weapon.

Police have been praised for responding less than two minutes after the incident started, and the Buffalo mayor Byron Brown said more lives probably would have been lost if it was not for their "swift response" and "courageous actions".

New York governor Kathy Hochul said the National Action Network, headed by Rev Al Sharpton, will pay for the victims' families' funeral costs. She also said that the state's victim services has earmarked a total of $2m for the families.

She said "white supremacy terrorism... stops right here in Buffalo".

She said: "To anyone else who dare break the security that every citizen is entitled to, to make them feel victimised, you've just picked a fight with 20 million New Yorkers - because we will continue to stand up because an attack on one is an attack on all.

"And this was, no other way to describe it, than white supremacy terrorism, it's racism, it's hatred, and it stops right here in Buffalo."

Meanwhile, Gendron appeared on the police radar last year after he threatened to carry out a shooting at a high school, according to a police official.

New York State Police said troopers were called to Susquehanna High School in Conklin in New York State on 8 June 2021, for a report that a 17-year-old student had made threatening statements.

Police said the student was taken into custody under a state mental health law and taken to a hospital for an evaluation. The police statement did not give the student's name.

Speaking on Sunday, President Joe Biden said: "We must all work together to address the hate that remains a stain on the soul of America.

"Our hearts are heavy once again, but our resolve must never, ever waiver."

https://news.sky.com/story/buffalo-...-of-hate-who-is-now-on-suicide-watch-12613911

 

[Technics 1210]

Austerity breeds crime.

Poor woke/lefties cannot blame Trump now.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Austerity breeds crime.

Poor woke/lefties cannot blame Trump now.

I'm sure that's true, but this guy drove 200 miles so he could afford a car and petrol, and also the rifle and head camera which he used to livestream his slaughter. I would hazard a guess that he wasn't exactly starving.

 

[Technics 1210]

I'm sure that's true, but this guy drove 200 miles so he could afford a car and petrol, and also the rifle and head camera which he used to livestream his slaughter. I would hazard a guess that he wasn't exactly starving.

Depression makes a long drives feel short, and adrenaline trumps hunger.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Depression makes a long drives feel short, and adrenaline trumps hunger.

Yes, I suppose he figured he'd get three meals a day in prison so incarceratiion might be a win.

 

[Robert]

Disgusting and shocking.

So glad I was born in the UK.

The shooter appears to have fallen prey to the far-right White Replacement Conspiracy Theory.

 

[sweep_shot]

Yes, I suppose he figured he'd get three meals a day in prison so incarceratiion might be a win.

He wasn't poor. His parents have good jobs.

He was a white supremacist. He believed in "white replacement" conspiracy theory.

The shooter appears to have fallen prey to the far-right White Replacement Conspiracy Theory.

Correct.

 

[Firebat]

To drive 200 miles to live-stream your mass shooting is a special kind of sick and twisted.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Right winger forums suck people in with memes and jokes. Fortunately most people tend to grow out of it after a bit and see through it. However, for some it sends them down further rabbit holes into more and more depraved parts of the internet and radicalises them with conspiracy theories.

 

[Firebat]

The teenager had the N-word written on the barrel of his gun, as well as the number 14 (referring to the most popular white supremacist slogan known as the Fourteen Words). This was all written to be seen from the GoPro he was using to livestream this.

 

[Robert]

He wasn't poor. His parents have good jobs.

He was a white supremacist. He believed in "white replacement" conspiracy theory.

Correct.

This stuff is profligate in the UK too - spread on glossy fliers in the last local elections. Which means someone with money is behind it. Who?

 

[MenInG]

The massacre by a white supremacist gunman of Black shoppers at a Buffalo grocery store has drawn renewed scrutiny of Republican figures in the US who have embraced the racist “great replacement theory” he is alleged to have used as justification for the murders.

Born from far-right nationalism, the extremist ideology expounding the view that immigration will ultimately destroy white values and western civilization has found favor not only with media figures, such as the conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson, but a host of elected politicians and others seeking office.

Those who have convinced themselves Democrats are operating an open-door immigration policy to “replace” Republican voters with people of color and keep themselves in power permanently include Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, chair of her party’s House conference, and JD Vance, the Donald Trump-approved Republican nominee to represent Ohio in the US Senate.

After the Buffalo shooting, the pair are among those receiving blowback for embracing the conspiracy theory that the killer referred to repeatedly in an online manifesto authorities believe he posted to justify the attack.

Citing “despicable” Facebook advertisements promoting great replacement theory Stefanik utilized in 2021, in which she said “radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a permanent election insurrection”, the Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger blasted his House colleague.

“Did you know: [MENTION=397]elise[/MENTION]Stefanik pushes white replacement theory? The #3 in the house GOP @Liz_Cheney got removed for demanding truth. @GOPLeader should be asked about this,” he said in a tweet, referring to Wyoming Republican Cheney’s ousting by the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, over her place on the 6 January panel.

Kinzinger, of Illinois, is the only other Republican on the House committee looking into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his election defeat to Joe Biden. He also attacked Stefanik this week for a tweet in which she accused Democrats of being “pedo grifters” – meaning pedophiles – for providing baby formula for immigrant babies at the southern border during a national shortage.

Republican Senate candidate JD Vance is another vocal exponent of the discredited theory.
The Republican Senate candidate JD Vance is another vocal exponent of the discredited theory. Photograph: Joe Maiorana/AP
Advertisement

Meanwhile Vance, who credits the former president’s endorsement for helping him to victory in last week’s Ohio primary, is another vocal exponent of the discredited theory.

“You’re talking about a shift in the democratic makeup of this country that would mean we never win, meaning Republicans would never win a national election in this country ever again,” he claimed at a campaign event in Portsmouth last month.

Josh Mandel, who was defeated by Vance, went even further in an interview on Breitbart in October.

“This is about changing the face of America, figuratively and literally. They are trying to change our culture, change our demographics and change our electorate. This is all about power,” he said, without acknowledging that only US citizens can vote, and the path to citizenship can take legal immigrants many years.

In a study of the history of great replacement theory in Republican circles, Vice notes that it “isn’t new to American politicians”. In 2017, the Iowa congressman Steve King, a fierce Trump loyalist, said in a tweet: “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”

Arguably the biggest rightwing apologist for great replacement theory, however, is Carlson, the Fox News host.

On his show last year, he stated: “Demographic change is the key to the Democratic party’s political ambitions. In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country.”

His “nefarious” stance, the Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent wrote: “exposes the ideological underbelly of the broader right-wing populist nationalist movement that he and his defenders champion”.

Buffalo was not the first time a mass shooter with white supremacist motivations had cited great replacement theory. It also featured in the manifesto of a gunman who slaughtered 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019.

After the Christchurch murders, the UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a counter-extremist organization, issued a report that found the once-obscure ideology was promoted so effectively by the far right that it became ingrained in political discourse, and that social media references doubled in four years to more than 1.5m Twitter mentions alone.

“It’s shocking to see the extent to which extreme-right concepts such as the great replacement theory and calls for ‘remigration’ have entered mainstream political discourse and are now referenced by politicians who head states and sit in parliaments,” Julia Ebner, the report’s co-author, said at the time.

The effect of the backlash against US politicians promoting the theory following the Buffalo attack remains to be seen. The pugilistic Stefanik, for example, was not backing down on Sunday, making no mention of the massacre in her home state as she retweeted criticism of Democrats over the baby formula shortage.

Her only social media comment to date, a single tweet on Saturday, failed to acknowledge the race of most of the victims, or the circumstances or motivation for the shooting.

Guardian

 

[JaDed]

https://www.ign.com/articles/twitch-discord-provide-statements-following-buffalo-mass-shooting

Twitch and Discord have both released statements following their association with a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, that saw ten people killed and three more injured.

The attack - which is currently being investigated as racially motivated - was carried out by an 18-year-old white man who streamed it for at least two minutes on Twitch and allegedly planned it using Discord.

As reported by Eurogamer, Twitch told CNN that it identified and removed the stream in less than two minutes and later said to The New York Times that it "has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind, and works swiftly to respond to all incidents".

It added: "The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content."

The shooter allegedly released a 180-page document outlining his racist and anti-Semitic views ahead of the attack which also referenced the use of online forum 4chan and a private Discord chat room.

Discord's statement said: "We extend our deepest sympathies to the victims and their families, and we will do everything we can to assist law enforcement in the investigation."

 

[JaDed]

Extremely disturbing about twitch and discord.. it just gives more fire to people that blame Gaming industry for violence.

Discord WITHOUT end to end encryption should had caught it sooner!

 

[MenInG]

New York state's top prosecutor has launched an investigation into the role social media companies played in Saturday's mass shooting in Buffalo.

The inquiry will look at the extent that social platforms were "used to stream, promote, or plan the event", the attorney general's office said.

The state's governor has argued tech firms share some blame for the attack.

Critics say the companies were too slow to remove the alleged gunman's violent posts.

Announcing the investigation on Wednesday, Attorney General Letitia James said: "The terror attack in Buffalo has once again revealed the depths and danger of the online forums that spread and promote hate."

The suspect, who is white, allegedly posted a manifesto on Google and livestreamed the fatal shooting of 10 people at a supermarket in a predominantly black neighbourhood on Twitch, a company owned by Amazon.

"The fact that an individual can post detailed plans to commit such an act of hate without consequence, and then stream it for the world to see is bone-chilling and unfathomable," Ms James said.

The stream was taken down less than two minutes after the violence began, Twitch said, but was duplicated on other streaming sites despite the removal.

Facebook did not remove a link to the copied video for more than 10 hours, by which time it had been shared more than 46,000 times on the platform. A copy uploaded elsewhere was viewed more than three million times before being taken down.

Ms James said the investigation would also target online forums 4chan, 8chan, and Discord where the gunman reportedly posted about his plans.

The inquiry was ordered by Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, who also directed the New York State Police to create a unit dedicated to monitoring social media for extremist threats.

She is also asking the state legislature to pass tougher gun control measures. Her Republican critics in the state assembly have condemned her for not doing more to prevent mass shootings ahead of the attack.

The US Department of Justice is investigating the attack as a hate crime.

BBC