By Safia Samee Ali —
NBC News
The young man suspected of killing 10 people in a shooting at a Buffalo supermarket was a frequent visitor to gun shops in New York.
He went back and forth between stores looking for deals, according to the owners of some of the businesses he visited.
At one of them just a month ago, 18-year-old Payton Gendron asked the owner to show him some guns, which he carefully examined but later returned for their price.
“He always told me my prices were too high,” explained the owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear.
"He said he could go to other places to get a better price," he added.
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The owner said he sold ammunition and collector's coins to the suspect, but claimed he did not provide him with any weapons.
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In this tiny town of 5,000, just off the Pennsylvania-upstate New York border, some of those Gendron met or encountered recently were owners of pawnbrokers and shops that sold coins and guns.
Some of those visits are described in the chat logs of a Discord social network account with the same alias as the one used by the suspect.
“It was always 'yes, sir;
no sir;
Yes ma'am;
no ma'am,'” the business owner said, noting that Gendron was always “very polite” and “calm” when he entered the store.
At The Coin Shop in Johnson City, 20 minutes from Conklin, Gendron was a regular, spending hours on end in the store examining old English coins, according to Larry Gondek, the store's numismatist, who served him seven or eight times. what happened there.
He didn't notice anything alarming until he
asked about the store's security cameras
on his last visit a few months ago.
Gendron asked how many cameras were inside and outside the store and where they were placed, Gondek explained.
When he asked why he wanted to know, the suspect told him it was because he wanted to feel safe in the store, he added.
That answer didn't sit well with Gondek, who considered reporting it to the police but eventually changed his mind, reasoning that the suspect was just a boy.
The FBI declined to comment on "specific details related to the suspect's movements or plans," saying the investigation is ongoing.
The Buffalo Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Payton Gendron's home in Conklin on Monday.Michael Hill/AP
"He led a double life"
Those who knew the suspect in his personal life are also re-examining any and all interactions with him.
Matthew Casado,
19, said he and the suspect had known each other since childhood, and were
best friends
for much of their lives.
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They lost touch around the time of Susquehanna Valley High School's graduation, Casado said in a text message, but Gendron spoke to him after graduation "because he was lonely and wanted to be around people."
“Until Saturday I knew him as a
kind person
and
I never knew he was racist,
being Hispanic I had never known he was racist.
Now it seems that
he was leading a double life
because I don't know how anyone can be friends with a race that he hates," Casado wrote in a text message.
Senior law enforcement officials said they believe the suspect, who is white, posted a 180-page racist manifesto online.
In it, the author revealed plans to attack blacks and repeatedly cited the "great replacement theory", which
proclaims despite being a lie that whites will be replaced by people of other races
through immigration, interracial marriage and even violent methods. .
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Police said the suspect live-streamed his attack on the video game platform Twitch.
The company said it removed the stream less than two minutes after the shooting began and "indefinitely suspended" the user.
Casado said his former friend "mentioned an 80-page school paper" when the two went to a flea market together two weeks ago, but now believes the suspect was referring to the violent document.
On Monday, at a small grocery store in the heart of Conklin, a sign written in brightly colored chalk in front of the entrance read: “Prayers for the people of Buffalo.
Prayers for the people of Conklin.
United in our pain.
The suspect worked at the store for a short time, said Carol, an employee who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used to protect her privacy.
The woman said the young man did not talk to many people and did not interact with customers.
His time there ended because "the job just wasn't for him," she said.
Carol said she doesn't want the suspect to be seen as a reflection of Conklin, who she says is welcoming and inclusive.
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"People assume there's a hive mentality here, but that couldn't be further from the truth," he said.
“This is a compassionate community, and we are also heartbroken and hurt by Buffalo.
This has broken our hearts all,” he added.
Last year, New York state police investigated Gendron after he threatened to carry out a shooting in June when he was a high school student, a senior law enforcement official said.
At the time, the suspect was a minor, he added.
He was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation, and was not charged with a crime.
Jennifer, a Conklin resident who had children at that school when the threat occurred, said the parents were never told about the incident and only found out after the Buffalo tragedy.
She spoke on the condition that her last name not be revealed for privacy reasons.
“How have they been able to hide this from us all this time?
Our children's safety was potentially threatened and they swept it under the rug.
The school should have told us.
We trust them,” she condemned.
“If we had known, maybe
our community could have stepped in to help the family,”
she emphasized.
A plaster cast of Payton Gendron's hand from 2008 on the porch of his home in Conklin, NYMichael Hill/AP
The Susquehanna Valley Central School District did not respond to a request for comment.
In a letter to families, district Superintendent Ronald Doig said the district is cooperating with the investigation into the shooting and cannot "comment on the process or results" related to it.
Doig said the school district has beefed up security at schools and is offering mental health support services.
"We remain shocked and unspeakably saddened by the tragic racially motivated hate crime that took place in Buffalo, New York on Saturday," Doig wrote.
“Such hate and violence are contrary to who we are as a district and a community,” he added.
Jennifer said she knew the suspect and his family.
Her closest children described him as
"a little weird" and "different,"
she said.
“He didn't talk much.
He was very quiet and never interacted much,” she said.
"It's horrible how one sick person can affect so many lives," he said, adding that the situation has put Conklin in the spotlight for the wrong reasons and that his community will likely bear a shameful mark for years to come.
"It seems that now we are all under suspicion by the country," she added.
Kaden Levene, 19, was a high school senior when Gendron was a freshman, but the two shared many of the same classes, he said.
"He was one of the smart guys, and he kind of kept to himself and was very under the radar," she added, noting that the suspect had a few friends and didn't socialize much.
Levene described him as a bit "socially awkward" and said he made "weird jokes" about video games, but Levene said he was never offended by Gendron's behavior, which Levene at the time attributed to his shyness.
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But now, processing more of his time with Gendron, Levene said there is one memory that sticks out.
Levene, who is white, recalls a group project he was assigned to work on with Gendron and a black student.
He said all three worked well, and he didn't think twice until now.
“Now I keep thinking about it,” he said.
"He performed totally well and felt comfortable, but maybe he had it all under his skin," he concluded.
