The white gunman accused of massacring 10 black people in a racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York supermarket planned to continue killing had he escaped the scene, the police commissioner said Monday, as the possibility of federal charges loomed. hate crimes or domestic terrorism.
The gunman, who had crossed the state to attack people at Tops Friendly Market, had also talked about shooting another store, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told CNN.
“He was going to get in his car and continue driving down Jefferson Avenue and continue doing the same thing,” the commissioner said.
The commissioner’s account was similar to parts of a 180-page racist document, allegedly written by suspect Payton Gendron, that said the assault was intended to terrorize all non-white, non-Christian people into leaving the country. . Federal authorities were working to confirm the authenticity of the document.
Gendron, 18, traveled about 200 miles from his home in Conklin, New York, to carry out the attack, police said. Authorities said he wielded an AR-15-style rifle, wore a bulletproof vest and wore a helmet camera to live stream the bloodbath.
Federal prosecutors said they are considering federal hate crime charges in the case.
Buffalo Common Council President Darius Pridgen tells CBC News why people in his neighborhood fought to get the supermarket where 10 black people were killed on Saturday, and how it served as a lifeline and center for so many in the community.
Former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield Jr., who lost his 86-year-old mother, Ruth Whitfield, in the shooting, asked how the country could allow its history of racist killings to repeat itself.
“We’re not just hurt. We’re angry. We’re angry. This shouldn’t have happened. We do our best to be good citizens, to be good people. We believe in God. We trust in Him. We treat people decently, and we love even our enemies,” Whitfield said at a news conference with civil rights attorney Ben Crump and others.
“And you expect us to keep doing this over and over and over, one more time, forgive and forget,” he continued. “While the people we elect and trust in office in this country go to great lengths not to protect us, to not consider us equals.”
Whitfield’s mother was killed after visiting her husband daily in a nursing home.
“How do we tell him it’s gone? Let alone that it’s gone to a white supremacist? A terrorist? An evil person who is allowed to live among us?” Whitfield said.
The victims also included a man buying a cake for his grandson; a church deacon who helps people get home with their purchases; and a supermarket security guard.
“This was an act of domestic terrorism,” Crump told reporters. “And we have to define it as such. We can’t sugarcoat it. We can’t try to explain it away by talking about mental illness. No.”
Attorney Ben Crump says the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket that left 10 black people dead was an act of racism and bigotry that should be treated as an act of domestic terrorism.
The bloodshed in Buffalo was the deadliest in a wave of weekend shootings, including at a California church and a Texas flea market.
Messages were left with Gendron’s attorneys on Monday. No one answered the door of his family’s house in the morning and relatives did not respond to messages.
Law enforcement officials said Sunday that New York State Police officers had been called to Gendron’s high school last June over a report that the then-17-year-old had made threatening statements. The threat was “general” in nature and not related to race, Gramaglia said.
Gendron had threatened to carry out a shooting at Susquehanna Valley High in Conklin near graduation, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Gramaglia said Gendron had no further contact with police after a mental health evaluation that landed him in a hospital for a day and a half.
It was unclear whether officials could have invoked New York’s “red flag” regulation, which allows law enforcement, school officials and families to petition a court to order the seizure of weapons from people deemed dangerous. Authorities did not say when Gendron acquired the weapons he had during the deadly attack.
Federal law prohibits people from owning guns if a judge has determined they have a “mental defect” or have been forced into a mental institution. An assessment alone would not trigger a ban.
The long list of mass shootings in the US that involved missed opportunities to intervene includes the 2018 massacre of 17 students at a high school in Parkland, Florida, where law enforcement officials received numerous complaints about statements threats from the gunman and the killing of more than two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017 by a former Air Force member who was able to buy a gun despite a history of violence.
At the White House, US President Joe Biden, who planned a visit to Buffalo on Tuesday, paid tribute to one of the victims, retired police officer and security guard Aaron Salter. Salter repeatedly fired at the attacker, hitting his body armor at least once before he was shot dead. Biden said Salter “gave his life trying to save others.”
House Republican leadership has allowed white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends much worse. The leaders of @GOP they must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.
Authorities said that in addition to the 10 blacks killed, three people were injured: one black, two whites.
Gendron researched the demographics of the neighborhood and conducted reconnaissance before the attack, investigators said. Mayor Byron Brown said the gunman “came here for the express purpose of taking as many black lives as possible.”
Most of the victims were elderly, a distinction that historically carries weight in black communities. The same was true of several of the nine black people killed in 2015 in a racist attack on a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Buffalo gunman livestreamed the attack on Twitch, prompting scrutiny of how quickly social platforms react to violent videos.
Parts of the video circulating online show the gunman killing multiple shoppers in less than a minute. At one point, he points his gun at a white person hiding behind a checkout counter, but says, “I’m sorry!” and he doesn’t shoot. Screenshots purporting to be from the broadcast appear to show an anti-black racial slur scrawled on his rifle.
Gendron turned himself in to police who confronted him in the supermarket lobby. He was indicted on a murder charge. Family members did not respond to messages.
Reference-www.cbc.ca