Supermarket shooting suspect didn't belong in Buffalo 0:23
(CNN) ––
The man accused of killing 10 people in a racially motivated mass shooting inside a Buffalo, New York, supermarket had plans to "continue his killing spree," the police chief of the department said Monday. city, Joseph Gramaglia.
What we know about Payton Gendron, the suspect in the Buffalo supermarket shooting
"Evidence was discovered that he had plans, had he left here, to continue his killing spree and continue shooting people," the official told CNN. "He had even talked about possibly going to another store."
There is "some documentation" that the suspect possibly had plans for a shooting at "another big store," Gramaglia added.
"I was going to get in his car and continue driving down Jefferson Avenue to continue doing the same thing," she explained.
Since the tragedy began on Saturday afternoon, at Tops Friendly Markets, more details have been revealed of the racist manifesto allegedly written by the 18-year-old white man, suspected of traveling more than 320 kilometers from his home to carry out the attack in the supermarket of a predominantly black neighborhood.
Buffalo Massacre: She had just gotten to the store for ice cream with her daughters when people started screaming and running away
Eleven of the 13 people who were shot were black, according to authorities: the massacre is now being investigated as a hate crime.
The victims are between 20 and 86 years old, police said, including a former officer who tried to arrest the attacker and a 62-year-old woman who did her usual shopping with her fiancé.
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The shooting, which also left three injured, was a "full-blown, racially motivated hate crime by someone outside of our community," Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said.
"This was pure evil," he added.
The shooting in Buffalo
Governor of New York speaks about the publications of the suspect of 4:53
The shooter opened fire outside a Tops Friendly Markets store Saturday afternoon, fatally shooting multiple people in the parking lot before entering the store.
He exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard, who was killed, and then shot more people inside.
He then got out and turned himself in to the police.
Investigators believe the suspect was in Buffalo a day before the shooting and did a reconnaissance of the Tops Friendly Markets store, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said.
They also believe he acted alone, the official added.
10 people dead in shooting at Buffalo grocery store, police say
The suspect, identified as Payton S. Gendron, pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder on Saturday night, Buffalo Chief Justice Craig Hannah told CNN.
Meanwhile, the district attorney indicated that he expects to file more charges.
Gendron is being held without bond and on suicide watch, Sheriff Garcia said.
If he is convicted, he faces a maximum of life in prison without parole.
Suspect in Buffalo shooting is 'most closely guarded individual'
On Monday, Garcia told CNN that the suspect is probably the "most closely guarded individual in custody" in the entire country.
Speaking to CNN's Victor Blackwell, he explained that Gendron is under constant surveillance: "We have a deputy from the Erie County Sheriff's Jail watching him at all times."
And he added: "We also have video cameras in his cell and he is in a unit without mixing with other incarcerated people."
Witness describes how he experienced the shooting in a Buffalo supermarket 1:04
The suspect met with his legal team, Garcia said.
The Erie County Sheriff's Office is making sure that “justice is served and he has the legal representation that everyone deserves.
In this country we are innocent until proven guilty, so we are making sure they have as much time as they need,” he added.
Garcia said no family requests have been filed to visit the alleged attacker while he is in custody.
"I never thought this would happen here"
“I am sad, I am hurt, I am angry because I never thought this would happen here in the city of Buffalo,” resident Liz Bosley told CNN affiliate Spectrum News NY1.
Kelly Galloway's family shop at this supermarket every Saturday morning, she told the station.
"Those could have been our mothers, our grandmothers, our aunts, our uncles," she said.
"And it was us. It was us."
Here's what we know so far about the victims who died in the Buffalo mass shooting
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown spoke Sunday to congregants at a church.
And, referring to those who lost their lives, he said: "Their lives and their example should be models for us, that we must love more, that we have to care more about each other because we don't know when our time will come."
People at the supermarket "going about their daily lives, going out in the morning and having all the expectations of being home at night with their families," he continued.
"Many of us stood shoulder to shoulder yesterday in pain, as we all do, dealing with the aftermath of this horrific, racist and violent attack on our community," she added.
Massacre is investigated as a hate crime
A woman writes a message in chalk Sunday during an impromptu tribute outside the Tops supermarket in Buffalo.
Local and state officials, along with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), continue their investigation to obtain more details about the shooting and the attacker's intent.
"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 during a briefing. press conference this Sunday.
The suspect began livestreaming the attack, but the video was removed less than two minutes after the violence began, Twitch, a live streaming service, said in a statement sent to CNN.
ANALYSIS |
The Buffalo massacre further shakes a country insecure by violence
Authorities will "examine extensive digital platforms, computers, phones, cameras and anything else related in this investigation," Gramaglia said Sunday.
“The evidence we have uncovered so far leaves no doubt that this is an outright racist hate crime.
It will be treated as a hate crime,” Gramaglia insisted.
"He's someone who has hate in his heart, soul and mind."
More details about the alleged manifesto
The evidence may include a 180-page manifesto that has been attributed to the suspect and was posted online just before the attack.
CNN independently obtained the document shortly after the mass shooting, before authorities released the name of the suspect.
And law enforcement sources told CNN that his description of the weapons matches those used by the suspect.
In the manifesto, the suspect allegedly details how he became radicalized by reading online message boards, while describing the attack as terrorism and describing himself as a white supremacist.
He subscribed to a "great substitution" theory: the false belief that white Americans are being "replaced" by people of other races.
Once a fringe idea, "substitution theory" has recently become a talking point for Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other leading conservatives.
Five hate-motivated massacres, just like the one in Buffalo, authorities say
The author of the manifesto also wrote that the supermarket in Buffalo is located in a zip code that "has the highest percentage of blacks that is close enough to where I live."
The zip code in which the store is located, 14208, is 78% black — the highest percentage of black population in any zip code in upstate New York, according to the 2020 American Community Survey, which conducted the US Census Bureau The suspect in the shooting is from the town of Conklin, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Buffalo.
The document also notes that the suspect purchased the main firearm he used, a Bushmaster XM-15, at a gun store before "illegally modifying" it.
"Obviously we are reviewing [the manifesto] carefully and evaluating all the evidence," Erie County District Attorney John Flynn told CNN.
Suspect in Buffalo shooting was on radar
Now, the suspect had been on police radar for about a year, authorities said.
Last June, when he was a student at Susquehanna Valley Central High School, he made a "widespread threat" that was not racially motivated, Gramaglia said.
The student was taken for a mental health evaluation and released a day and a half later, she added.
New York State Police investigated and responded to a report that a 17-year-old student had made "a threatening statement" in June at the same high school, an agency spokesperson confirmed to CNN.
The student was taken into custody and taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.
The entire community hit by the massacre
Saturday's attack shocked those who live in the heart of the Kingsley and Masten Park neighborhoods.
Geraldine Talley, 62, was out shopping with her fiancé on Saturday when she was shot to death, 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 organized our family reunion, she was an avid baker...mother of two beautiful children," she added.
"We are outraged," he added.
“Obviously, this is not the first racially motivated attack in the United States.
However, it is the first to hit our home.”
New York Governor 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 a good neighbor to them,” he said.
Buffalo shooting victims 'are people we all know'
With the supermarket closed due to the investigation, Tops Markets is working with a representative from the Masten district to secure free food and supplies, as well as free transportation, for those in need, he said.
The supermarket is in a so-called "food desert" -- where access to fresh food and groceries is limited -- and "served as the only supermarket within walking distance for many Buffalons," Hochul said.
The mayor called the place "near and dear" in his heart.
"It's one that I sponsor from time to time," Brown said Saturday.
"My family sponsors from time to time, and some of the victims of this gunman's attack are people that all of us here know."
CNN's Casey Tolan, Artemis Moshtaghian, Sarah Jorgensen, Polo Sandoval, Chuck Johnston, Samantha Beech, Liam Reilly, Eric Levenson, Amir Vera, Dakin Andone, Haley Burton, Emma Tucker, Roxanne Garcia and Shimon Prokupecz contributed to this report. .
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