{"id":5044,"date":"2022-05-18T19:36:32","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T19:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=5044"},"modified":"2023-11-03T19:05:54","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T19:05:54","slug":"buffalo-shooter-targeted-african-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/18\/buffalo-shooter-targeted-african-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Shooter Targeted African American"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Associated Press<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The white 18-year-old who\u00a0fatally shot 10 people<\/a>\u00a0at a Buffalo supermarket researched the local demographics and arrived a day in advance to conduct reconnaissance with the intent of killing as many Black people as possible, officials said Sunday.<\/p>\n

The racially motivated attack came a year after the gunman was taken to a hospital by State Police after making threats involving his high school, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t charged with a crime and was out of the hospital within a day and a half, police said, but the revelation raised questions about his access to weapons and whether he could have been under closer supervision by law enforcement.<\/p>\n

The Buffalo attack prompted grief and anger in the predominantly Black neighborhood around Tops Friendly Market. A group of people gathered there Sunday afternoon to lead chants of \u201cBlack lives matter\u201d and\u00a0mourn victims that included<\/a>\u00a0an 86-year-old woman who had just visited her husband in a nursing home and a supermarket security guard, both of whom were Black.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody filled his heart so full of hate that he would destroy and devastate our community,\u201d the Rev. Denise Walden-Glenn said.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the National Peace Officers\u2019 Memorial service at the U.S. Capitol,\u00a0President Joe Biden said,<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWe must all work together to address the hate that remains a stain on the soul of America.\u201d The White House later announced that the president and first lady would travel to Buffalo on Tuesday to \u201cgrieve with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Buffalo attack was the deadliest of multiple shootings across the country in recent days. Officials in\u00a0Milwaukee imposed a curfew<\/a>\u00a0after 21 people were injured in three separate shootings near an entertainment district where thousands gathered Friday for an NBA playoff game.\u00a0Three other shootings<\/a>\u00a0over the weekend in the Midwest city left three people dead.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, two shootings \u2014 one at a\u00a0Houston flea market<\/a>\u00a0and another at a\u00a0California church<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 left three people dead and others wounded.<\/p>\n

As the country reeled from the Buffalo attack, new details emerged about the gunman\u2019s past and Saturday\u2019s rampage, which the shooter livestreamed on Twitch. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, demanded technology companies tell her whether they\u2019ve done \u201ceverything humanly possible\u201d to make sure they\u2019re monitoring violent content as soon as it appears.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf not, then I\u2019m going to hold you responsible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Twitch said in a statement that it ended the transmission \u201cless than two minutes after the violence started.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York State Police said troopers were called early last June to the high school then attended by the alleged gunman, Payton Gendron, for a report that a 17-year-old student had made threatening statements.<\/p>\n

Gendron threatened to carry out a shooting at Susquehanna Valley High School, in Conklin, New York, around the time of graduation, a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly on the investigation.<\/p>\n

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Gendron had no further contact with law enforcement after his release from the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody called in,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody called any complaints,\u201d Gramaglia said.<\/p>\n

Federal law bars people from owning a gun if a judge has determined they have a \u201cmental defect\u201d or they have been forced into a mental institution \u2014 but an evaluation alone would not trigger the prohibition.<\/p>\n

Federal authorities were still working to confirm the authenticity of a racist 180-page document, purportedly written by Gendron, that detailed his plans for the attack and reasons for carrying it out.<\/p>\n

A preliminary investigation found Gendron had repeatedly visited sites\u00a0espousing white supremacist ideologies and race-based conspiracy theories<\/a>\u00a0and extensively researched the\u00a02019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand<\/a>, and the man who\u00a0killed dozens at a summer camp in Norway in 2011<\/a>, the law enforcement official told AP.<\/p>\n

Federal agents served multiple search warrants and interviewed Gendron\u2019s parents, who were cooperating with investigators, the law enforcement official said.<\/p>\n

Portions of the Twitch video circulating online showed the gunman firing volley after volley of shots in less than a minute as he raced through the parking lot and then the store, pausing for just a moment to reload. At one point, he trains his weapon on a white person cowering behind a checkout counter, but says \u201cSorry!\u201d and doesn\u2019t shoot.<\/p>\n

Screenshots purporting to be from the broadcast appear to show a racial slur targeting Black people scrawled on his rifle, as well as the number 14 \u2014 likely referencing a white supremacist slogan.<\/p>\n

Authorities said he shot, in total, 11 Black people and two white people Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis individual came here with the express purpose of taking as many Black lives as he possibly could,\u201d Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at a news conference Sunday.<\/p>\n

The lengthy statement attributed to Gendron outlined a racist ideology rooted in a belief that the United States should belong only to white people. All others, the document said, were \u201creplacers\u201d who should be eliminated by force or terror. The attack was intended to intimidate all non-white, non-Christian people and get them to leave the country, it said.<\/p>\n

The document said Gendron researched demographics to select his target, and picked a neighborhood in Buffalo because it had a high ratio of Black residents.<\/p>\n

Gendron traveled about 200 miles (320 kilometers) from his home in Conklin, New York, to Buffalo to commit the attack, police said.<\/p>\n

He conducted reconnaissance on the store and the area on Friday, a day before the shooting, Gramaglia said.<\/p>\n

Gendron surrendered to police who confronted him in the supermarket\u2019s vestibule and convinced him to drop the rifle he had put to his neck. He was arraigned later Saturday on a murder charge, appearing before a judge in a paper gown.<\/p>\n

The Buffalo attack was just the latest act of mass violence in a country unsettled by racial tensions, gun violence and a recent spate of hate crimes. It came a month after\u00a0a shooting on a Brooklyn subway<\/a>\u00a0wounded 10, and just over a year after\u00a010 were killed<\/a>\u00a0in a shooting at a Colorado supermarket.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just too much. I\u2019m trying to bear witness but it\u2019s just too much. You can\u2019t even go to the damn store in peace,\u201d Buffalo resident Yvonne Woodard told the AP. \u201cIt\u2019s just crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Associated Press The white 18-year-old who\u00a0fatally shot 10 people\u00a0at a Buffalo supermarket researched the local demographics and arrived a day in advance to conduct reconnaissance with the intent of killing as many Black people as possible, officials said Sunday. The racially motivated attack came a year after the gunman was taken to a hospital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[121],"class_list":["post-5044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10154,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions\/10154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=5044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}