Summary Statement
On Saturday, May 14, 2022 at approximately 2:30pm a lone active shooter shot 13 people, killing 10 at a Top's Market grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Attack Overview
The attack unfolded at approximately 2:30pm. The suspect, wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, shot four people in the parking lot, three fatally, before proceeding inside the store. While in the store, the gunman was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security. The guard shot and struck the suspect, but without effect due to the body armor. The gunman then proceeded to shoot nine more people inside the store including the guard.
Buffalo police arrived on scene within minutes of the first 911 call. When confronted by officers at the store, the suspect held a gun to his own neck. He then dropped the weapon and surrendered to police. The shooter was taken into custody without incident.
The suspect fired 50 rounds during the attack, and appeared to be selectively targeting African-American patrons.
Suspect
The suspect has been identified as 18 year old, Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York.
According to Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia, investigators believe Gendron acted on his own, and traveled about 200 miles to the store.
Gendron is a former student at Broome Community College, which is part of the State University of New York college system.
Motive
Gendron is a self-described white supremacist, fueled by a radical, racially motivated violent extremist ideology.
Manifesto
Investigators are reviewing a 180-page purported manifesto posted online in connection with the shooting. The author of the document, who claims to be Payton Gendron, confesses to the attack and describes himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an anti-Semite. Additionally, the author expresses support for Nazism and subscribed to the anti semitic and racist "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, which says Jews are plotting to replace white Americans with non-whites.
The document seemed to draw inspiration from the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
In the manifesto, the author says the supermarket in Buffalo is in a ZIP code that "has the highest black percentage that is close enough to where I live."
Charges
Gendron was arraigned on Saturday evening before the Buffalo City Court on one count of first-degree murder, according to a statement from the Erie County District Attorney's office, with "more charges coming."
Gendron entered a plea of not guilty.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the shooting as "a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
Further Details
Gendron live-streamed the attack on the social media gaming platform, Twitch. Twitch said in a statement that it removed the livestream less than two minutes after it started and was working to ensure no other accounts re-posted the content.
Portions of the Twitch video circulating online showed the gunman firing volley after volley of shots in less than a minute. At one point, Gendron trains his weapon on a white person cowering behind a checkout counter, but says “Sorry!” and doesn’t shoot.
According to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Gendron had legally purchased the AR-15 rifle allegedly used in the Buffalo supermarket shooting at a gun store in his home county of Broome, New York.
Multiple other weapons and ammunition were located in Gendron's vehicle.
- Prior Threat (School Threat)
Police in Broome County, New York, were called by a local high school in June 2021 after they reported that Gendron threatened a shooting at graduation.
Following a police investigation, no charges were filed. Gendron reportedly received a mental health evaluation and counseling after the incident.
Federal agents served multiple search warrants and interviewed Gendron’s parents, who were cooperating with investigators.
Authorities believe Gendron spent a day in Buffalo prior to the shooting to prepare for his attack. According to a manager at the supermarket, he observed the suspect sitting on a bench outside of the store for several hours Friday, the day before the shooting. He allegedly wore a camper bag on his back and was dressed in the same camouflage he wore Saturday. The manager reported he entered the store that evening and appeared to be bothering customers so she asked him to leave, which he did. Furthermore, there are unconfirmed reports that two months before the shooting, Gendron was casing the same Tops supermarket when he was confronted by a security guard.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia also stated that authorities have uncovered information that "he had plans to continue his attack and kill more black people."
- Online/Social Media Activity
In the days since the attack, online posts allegedly attributed to Gendron have come to light. The posts were made on the social media application, Discord. Those posts were shared on the online forum 4Chan. The posts reveal that Gendron went into the store at noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. during his March visit. Gendron noted in his post the activity taking place inside the market. He also drew a map depicting the store aisles, pharmacy, bakery and exit points of the building. Gendron wrote that as he did his last reconnaissance visit, he was approached by a "Black armed security guard" who said, "I've seen you go in and out... What are you doing?" The suspect wrote that he told the security guard that he is collecting "consensus data," for which the security guard said he needed to talk to the manager. "I asked for his name and he told me and I instantly forgot, then I said bye and thanks and walked back to my car," Gendron wrote. "In hindsight that was a close call."
In a post Gendron wrote March 10, "I'm going to have to kill that security guard at Tops I hope he doesn't kill me or even hurt me instantly."He added that the attack would take place March 15 but he ended up postponing the date several times. Gendron also considered attacking a church or an elementary school before settling on a supermarket, according to the posts.
Threat Assessment
The Buffalo attack was the deadliest US mass shooting of the year. There have been at least 198 mass shootings so far in 2022, per the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not including the shooter.
In his manifesto, the Buffalo attacker admits that because he was “bored” early on in the pandemic, he spent significant amounts of time online and radicalized on sites including 4chan. While much will be said in the coming days about the apparent “lone wolf” nature of the attack, the truth remains that the Buffalo attacker emerged from a broader far-right extremist ecosystem that continues to flourish online.
The manifesto recycles many of the conspiracies that motivated Dylann Roof, the terrorist responsible for a massacre at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015. While much of the racist screed is directed against African Americans, a significant portion is also dedicated to anti-Semitism, perpetuating hackneyed tropes about Jewish people, portraying them as an omnipotent cabal responsible for immigration, multiculturalism, and other anti-Semitic conspiracies. In that sense, there is significant overlap with the worldview of Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, who murdered eleven innocent worshippers in October 2018. At the core of the Buffalo attacker’s manifesto, much of which was plagiarized directly from the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the terrorist responsible for the March 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand mosque attack, was admiration for other high-profile far-right extremists. Far-right extremists frequently learn from the attacks of other terrorists and in many ways, attempt to “up the ante” in terms of lethality and aesthetics. The manifestos left behind, that can live on in perpetuity online, frequently serve as an inspiration and in some cases a playbook, for other far-right extremists seeking to carry out attacks of their own.
At the heart of many of the far-right extremist manifestos is the concept of the “Great Replacement,” which argues that due to demographics and immigration policies, white populations are being replaced by non-whites, including African Americans, non-White Hispanic and Latinos, and others frequently derided by extremists as “invaders.” For some European white supremacists, the primary threat emanates from the “Islamization” of Europe, or what Oslo attacker Anders Breivik called “Eurabia.” Furthermore, the Buffalo attacker’s manifesto referenced “white genocide” as a justification for his actions.
Grocery Stores
Grocery stores likely continue to be viewed as attractive targets for violent extremists because they are open long hours and accessible to the public. They are often densely populated, and are sometimes identified with particular communities or demographic ranges that extremists seek to target. Violent actors representing a wide range of extremist ideologies, or no known ideology at all, have targeted grocery stores in highly publicized, deadly assaults. According to the FBI’s Active Shooter Incident report, the average number of shootings at grocery stores has risen in recent years, tripling from two reported in 2018 to six in 2020. In total, between 2000 and 2020, the FBI recorded 28 such attacks, some of which occurred at gas station convenience stores or smaller markets, while others took place at major supermarket chains.
Pre-Attack Indicators
While no profile or series of behavior can correctly predict whether or not an individual is on the pathway to violence 100% of the time, the FBI has studied pre-attack indicators of active shooters over the course of thirteen years and has noted several telling statistics.
In this case, certain warning signs were exhibited.
• FBI - Pre-Attack indicators of Mass Shooters - 2000 - 2013 - Fact Sheet
• FBI - Pre-Attack indicators of Mass Shooters - 2000 - 2013 - Full Report
