The man accused of killing 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday planned to keep gunning down innocent victims in other locations, police revealed Monday.
“We have uncovered information that if he escaped the [Tops] supermarket, he had plans to continue his attack,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News Monday morning. “He had plans to continue driving down Jefferson Ave. to shoot more Black people ... possibly go to another store [or] location.”
Payton Gendron, 18, allegedly shot 13 people at the Tops Friendly Market Saturday afternoon, killing 10 of them.
The white man, who traveled hours from his home town of Conklin and came dressed in body armor and a tactical helmet, was specifically targeting Black people, according to an online manifesto in his name.
Buffalo had the “highest Black percentage that is close enough to where I live,” Gendron allegedly wrote.
He also cited his inspirations, including Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 people at two New Zealand mosques in 2019; Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black people at a church in South Carolina in 2015; and Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.
Describing himself as a fascist, a white supremacist and an anti-Semite, Gendron allegedly regurgitated tropes of the Great Replacement Theory, which claims that white people are being marginalized and wiped out.
The Department of Justice is investigating the shooting as a “hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism.”
Gendron eventually surrendered after the shooting, talked down by two officers after putting his own gun to his neck.
He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder Saturday night.
A manager at the grocery store told the Daily News Sunday that she saw Gendron lurking around the shop on Friday, a day before the shooting.
“He was acting like he was homeless and needed change,” Shonnell Teague told The News. “He really was checking out the store.”
Gramaglia also said during a press conference Sunday that investigators believe Gendron did “reconnaissance” in the area in preparation.
An AR-15 rifle was found at the scene and another rifle and a shotgun were found in Gendron’s car, according to officials.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said Sunday that Gendron is on suicide watch and being kept separately from other inmates at an Erie County jail.
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