New details emerge about suspect in Buffalo supermarket shooting
New details have emerged about the suspect in Saturday's mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket who's accused of killing 10 people and wounding three more. The suspect, who has been accused of committing a racially motivated attack and targeting the area for its high percentage of Black residents, scouted out the supermarket in early March and visited it the day before the shooting, police said.
Police said 18-year-old Payton Gendron drove more than 200 miles from his home in Conklin, New York, to kill as many Black people as he could. According to police, he was dressed in military-style camouflage and protective gear and was armed with a semi-automatic rifle. Investigators also said he planned to continue his attack at other places if he was not stopped at the supermarket.
The suspect was arrested at the Tops Family Markets where the shooting occurred, and was later charged with first-degree murder. Gendron pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Saturday.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said this weekend that federal authorities are "investigating this matter as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism." Of the 13 people killed or wounded, 11 were Black.
A source told CBS News that the shooter wrote a lengthy online post describing himself as a white supremacist. CBS News has also learned that parts of the post appear to have been copied from the manifesto of the shooter who attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
Authorities are now combing through online posts in which the suspect allegedly called Tops "attack area 1" and said he was indoctrinated by racist propaganda he saw on extremist websites during the COVID-19 lockdown. In some of his postings, he allegedly detailed a couple of what he called "close calls," including a speeding ticket he received during one of his reconnaissance missions.
"I don't know how you stop a lone person who just gets so embedded in this material that develops such hate for somebody," Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told CBS News. "I don't know what you do with that kind of a person."
Jericka Duncan and Jeff Pegues contributed reporting.