Buffalo shooting suspect had plans to shoot more people after deadly rampage at store, authorities say

By CNN

Published May 16, 2022 10:51 AM

By Travis Caldwell, Victor Blackwell and Amanda Watts, CNN

(CNN) -- The man accused of killing 10 people in a racist mass shooting Saturday at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket had plans to continue his shooting rampage and kill more Black people, authorities said Monday.

"There was evidence that was uncovered that he had plans, had he gotten out of here, to continue his rampage and continue shooting people," Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told CNN. "He'd even spoken about possibly going to another store."

It "appears" the suspect planned to kill more Black people, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said, adding, "we need to drill down further."

There is "some documentation" the suspect had plans possibly for a shooting at "another large superstore," Gramaglia said. "He was going to get in his car and continue to drive down Jefferson Avenue and continue doing the same thing."

The revelations align with a 180-page racist diatribe authorities have attributed to the suspect, an 18-year-old White man who traveled nearly 200 miles to a supermarket that served as the hub of a predominantly Black neighborhood to unleash an attack. The massacre follows other mass shootings in recent years across the United States in which authorities say the suspect was motivated by hate.

The Buffalo shooting was a "straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community," Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said. "This was pure evil."

The gunman killed several people in the parking lot before entering the building. He exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard -- who was killed -- and shot more people inside, then exited and surrendered to police.

Investigators believe the suspect acted alone and a day before the shooting did reconnaissance at the Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo, Gramaglia said. He also livestreamed the assault on Twitch as it occurred; the company took down the video within minutes, it said.

Ten people were killed and three wounded, with one still hospitalized Monday morning. Eleven victims were Black, officials said, and the attack is being investigated as a hate crime. Those slain range in age from 20 to 86, police said, among them the former police officer who tried to stop the gunman and a number of people doing their regular weekend grocery shopping.

"That could have been our mothers, our grandmothers, our aunts, our uncles," Kelly Galloway, whose family shops at the grocery on Saturday mornings, told CNN affiliate Spectrum News NY1. "And it was us. It was us."

The suspect, Payton S. Gendron, pleaded not guilty Saturday night to a charge of first-degree murder, Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah told CNN, and the district attorney has said he expects to file more charges. Gendron is in custody without bail and under suicide watch, Garcia said. If convicted, he faces a maximum of life in prison without parole.

Suspect did high school project on murder-suicides, sheriff says

Since the shooting, officials have looked at what they say was the suspect's racist intent and his history.

"We continue to investigate this case as a hate crime, a federal hate crime, and as a crime perpetrated by a racially motivated, violent extremist," Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI Buffalo field office, said Sunday at a news conference.

The 180-page document attributed to Gendron and posted online before the shooting lays out the alleged shooter's motives and shows the meticulous planning that went into the massacre. CNN independently obtained the document shortly after the mass shooting -- before authorities released the name of the suspect -- and law enforcement sources have told CNN its description of guns matches the weapons the suspect used.

In it, the suspect allegedly details how he had been radicalized by reading online message boards and describes the attack as terrorism and himself as a White supremacist, fascist and anti-Semite. He subscribed to a "great replacement" theory -- the false belief that White Americans are being "replaced" by people of other races. Once a fringe idea, "replacement theory" has recently become a talking point for Fox News' host Tucker Carlson as well as other prominent conservatives.

The document's author also writes that he targeted this Buffalo neighborhood because it's in a ZIP code that "has the highest Black percentage that is close enough to where I live."

Indeed, the ZIP code that includes the store, 14208, is 78% Black, the highest percentage of Black population of any ZIP code in upstate New York, according to the US Census Bureau's 2020 American Community Survey. The shooting suspect is from the town of Conklin, New York, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Buffalo near the Pennsylvania border.

The document also states the suspect bought the main gun he used, a Bushmaster XM-15, from a gun store before "illegally modifying it."

"We are obviously going through (the document) with a fine-toothed comb and reviewing that for all evidence," prosecutor Flynn told CNN.

A year ago, the suspect landed on the radar of police, officials said. New York State Police visited him in June after he turned in a high school project about murder-suicides, Garcia said.

"The state police arrived at his house at that point last year," the sheriff said. "He stayed at a facility -- I'm not sure if it was a hospital or a mental health facility -- for a day and a half."

State police investigated and responded to a report that an unnamed 17-year-old student had made "a threatening statement" in June at Susquehanna Valley Central High School, they said earlier. The student was taken into custody and to a hospital for a mental health evaluation, the agency said.

Entire community affected by mass shooting

Saturday's attack stunned those who live in the heart of the Kingsley and Masten Park neighborhoods.

Geraldine Talley, 62, was doing her regular grocery, shopping with her fiancé Saturday when she was shot and killed, her niece Lakesha Chapman told CNN.

"She's sweet, sweet, you know, the life of the party," Chapman said. "She was the person who always put our family reunion together, she was an avid baker ... mother of two beautiful children."

"We're outraged," she added. "This is not, obviously, the first racially triggered attack in America. However, it is the first that hits our home."

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $2.8 million for the victims and their families, her office said in a statement.

"The entire world is watching how we will come together as New Yorkers to overcome this unthinkable tragedy. Buffalo, my hometown, is the City of Good Neighbors and New York State will be good neighbors for them," she said.

With the grocery closed because of the investigation, Tops Markets is working with a representative of the Masten District to secure free food and supplies, plus free transportation, for those in need it, it said.

The supermarket is in a so-called "food desert" -- where access to fresh foods and groceries is limited -- and "served as the lone supermarket within walking distance for many Buffalonians," Hochul said.

The mayor called the site "near and dear" to his heart.

"It's one that I patronize from time to time," Brown said Saturday, "my family patronizes from time to time, and some of the victims of this shooter's attack are people that all of us standing up here know."

Article Topic Follows: National-World

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