The man who shot 10 people to death during an attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, is accused of 25 crimes, including domestic terrorism and hate crime, according to a report published on Wednesday (1) by the American newspaper The New York Times.
Payton Gendron, 18, was arrested shortly after the massacre. The attack took place in a predominantly black neighborhood and is also being investigated as an act of racially motivated violent extremism. Of the 13 people affected, 11 were black and two were white. The shooter is white.
According to the report, Gendron is also charged with first and second degree murders, three attempted murders, among other crimes. He is expected to be indicted this Thursday (2).
In the courts, Gendron even pleaded not guilty to the crime of aggravated murder, for which he was accused. A report by The Washington Post, however, showed that he had detailed the plan on the internet five months before the massacre.
The criminal decided to carry out the attack in December 2021. At the time, he wrote on the Discord app, in which users create guest-restricted chat groups, that he would kill those he called “surrogates” – a reference to the “replacement theory”, that Americans are at risk of being replaced by people of color. Days before the attack, he posted a 180-page racist manifesto online.
Gendron wore a bulletproof vest during the attack and was armed with a high powered rifle. He also had a video camera affixed to his helmet and streamed the action live over the internet.
Upon reaching the supermarket parking lot, the criminal got out of his car and shot four people, killing three. Then he walked into the store — an affiliate of the Tops Friendly Markets chain — and continued shooting. He exchanged fire with a security guard, whom he killed, and then hit several customers. Gendron was finally arrested by police after putting the gun to his own neck and threatening to kill himself.
Ten days after the attack in Buffalo, another massacre in the US resulted in the deaths of 19 children and 2 adults at a school in Uvalde, a city in South Texas where three out of four residents are of Latino origin.
