10 killed in live-streamed racist shooting at Buffalo supermarket in New York
- Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white gunman in tactical gear, shot and killed a guard and nine customers at the Tops Friendly Market
- The FBI said the attack, which the gunman live-streamed on Twitch, would be investigated as an act of ‘racially motivated violent extremism’ under federal law
An 18-year-old white gunman shot 10 people to death and wounded three others at a grocery store in a black neighbourhood of Buffalo, New York, before surrendering after what authorities called an act of “racially motivated violent extremism.”
Authorities said the suspect, who was armed with an assault-style rifle and appeared to have acted alone, drove to Buffalo from his home several hours away to launch the afternoon attack that he broadcast in real time on social media platform Twitch, a live video service owned by Amazon.com.
Eleven of the 13 people struck by gunfire were black, officials said. The two others were white. The racial breakdown of the dead was not made clear.
Court papers named the suspect as Payton Gendron of Conklin, a town of about 5,000 people in New York’s Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border.
He was arraigned hours after the shooting in state court on first-degree murder charges, which carry a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole, said Erie county district attorney John Flynn. New York has no capital punishment.
Flynn said the judge also ordered Gendron to remain in custody without bail and to undergo a “forensic examination.” Gendron was expected to return to court on May 19.