British teenager who made far-right hate videos ‘influencing’ Buffalo shooter jailed for 11 years
By Allegra Goodwin
A British teenager who made far-right extremist videos that “influenced” the mass shooter who killed 10 Black people in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket was jailed for 11 and a half years Friday, the UK’s PA Media news agency reported.
Daniel Harris, 19, from Derbyshire in northern England, posted videos shared by Payton Gendron, who pleaded guilty to the shooting in Buffalo, as well as videos linked to Anderson Lee Aldrich, the suspect accused of killing five people in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last November, the court heard, according to PA.
Sentencing Harris in court in Manchester, northern England, Judge Patrick Field was quoted by PA as saying, “What they did was truly appalling but what they did was no more than you intended to encourage others to do when publishing this material online.”
When referring to Buffalo shooter Gendron, 19, who admitted to charges of murder and hate-motivated terrorism, Judge Field said, “at the very least the material you produced and published has had some influence upon the young man, and I note he was a similar age to you, who went out and shot 10 Black people dead in a store in Buffalo,” according to PA.
Prosecutor Joe Allman said investigations following the shooting at Club Q in Colorado had revealed a link between videos shared by Harris and suspected shooter Aldrich.
The court heard the videos he made glorified mass murderers and encouraged others to emulate them, with one video called “How to Achieve Victory” promoting “total extermination of sub-humans once and for all.”
Harris was found guilty after a trial of five counts of encouraging terrorism and one count of possession of material for terrorist purposes, which referred to a 3D printer he was attempting to make firearm parts.
Judge Field said Harris had been “a propagandist for an extremist right-wing ideology,” adding, “You were in close touch with other right-wing extremists online and there can be little doubt that you shared ideas between you,” PA reported.
The judge added the teenager had previous convictions including the racially aggravated criminal damage of a memorial to George Floyd in Manchester.
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