The role of social media in the Buffalo, New York shooting 3:30
(CNN) -
When Jerome Bridges heard the gunshots at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, he ran to get some of his co-workers and customers in the store's break room to safety from the shooting.
He locked them inside with a heavy desk.
“All you heard was gunshots, constant gunshots — gunshots, gunshots, and gunshots,” recalled Bridges, who is a scanning coordinator at Tops Friendly Markets.
"We didn't have much, and what we had left was taken away": Buffalo residents grieve for their loved ones and the loss of a shelter for their community
"People were scattered around the place. They were screaming, crying, talking: 'There is an attacker in the store,'" he added.
Bridges tried to get people to remain quiet as gunfire was coming at food counters near them, he told CNN.
"I just wanted to make sure I kept the clients and my other three co-workers very safe. So even if I had died, it would have been, you know, dying protecting them," he said.
advertising
Suspect in Buffalo shooting appears in court
Biden: White supremacism will not have the last word 4:38
Shooting suspect Payton S. Gendron, 18, is accused of killing 10 people and wounding three others in a racially motivated mass shooting that targeted a predominantly black neighborhood.
Gendron, who is white, has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder, according to authorities, adding that other charges are expected against him.
The suspect appeared in court on Thursday, wearing an orange uniform and a mask, in addition to being handcuffed and surrounded by police officers.
Gendron was ordered to remain in pre-trial detention and is expected to appear in court again on June 9.
His attorney Brian Parker had no comment.
As the suspect was being led away after his court appearance, someone in the packed courtroom yelled, “Payton, you coward!”
Jerome Bridges barricaded himself and others in a back room and hid until the attacker was apprehended.
Authorities are investigating the shooting as a hate crime and a racially motivated act of violent extremism.
Of the 13 victims who were shot, 11 were black.
Online posts Gendron made on the Discord chat app show that the alleged attacker chose that neighborhood because of its majority black population.
The store's ZIP code, 14208, is 78% black, according to the Census Bureau's 2020 American Community Survey.
Hide in a fridge for milk
A black family of three was separated for about 20 minutes during the mass shooting.
They then described how distressing it was not knowing if everyone was safe when the shots rang out.
Buffalo Massacre: She had just gotten to the store for ice cream with her daughters when people started screaming and running away
Lamont Thomas and his 8-year-old daughter Londin were looking for cake mix for their mother, Julie Harwell's birthday, when they heard the first shots.
Harwell was elsewhere in the store when the shooting took place.
Thomas and his daughter followed a store clerk into the milk cooler section and hid there while they waited for the shooting to end, Thomas told CNN's Don Lemon late Wednesday.
"And then, when the shooter was still shooting, he actually tried to shoot at the coolers, but the bullets never penetrated," Thomas recalled.
"We could see the milk that he shot...dripping."
And he added that he was relieved when the bullets missed them.
Buffalo shooter reportedly planned shooting for months 2:58
Thomas shielded his daughter's body with his own, he said, and put his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.
Londin said that he was not afraid for her and that he was thinking about her mother, while her father tried to calm her down.
Across the supermarket, Harwell "couldn't even process or think twice about what my next move would be," he said.
ANALYSIS |
The Buffalo massacre further shakes a country insecure by violence
"It was like the... scariest moment of my life because I never thought something like this would happen in Buffalo or anywhere else. I know it happens, but we think never in our city," he explained.
At one point, Harwell was only a few feet from the attacker.
"That's when it all became real to me, because I didn't know what was going on until I saw him (the shooter). It was surreal," he recounted.
"It annoys me to even get even close to where it happened because it brings back so many memories. And none of them I want to remember ... Not the paranoid state of mind or just having anxiety right now, and it's just hard to be there," Harwell said.
Gendron publications, in the crosshairs
Anti-Semite and white supremacist, this is how the Buffalo attacker proclaims himself 2:18
The suspect's social media posts are now key to the investigation because they offer details of how he planned his attack and his motives.
In messages first posted on Discord — and then more widely on 4chan, a hate-filled online forum — Gendron said he visited the grocery store several times on March 8 to inspect its distribution.
He also noted how many black and white people shopped during his visits and drew a map of the interior of the store, according to his posts.
Posts of Buffalo massacre suspect's plans were viewable online 30 minutes before mass shooting
Investigators are also reviewing a 180-page racist document they say Gendron wrote and posted online shortly before the shooting.
In it, the suspect confesses to the attack and describes himself as a fascist, white supremacist, and anti-Semite.
The signals given by the suspect
In June, Gendron gave a sign of violence when he did a school project on murder-suicide while he was a student at Susquehanna Valley Central High School in Conklin, New York, authorities said.
Police received a call from the school, and Gendron was later taken in for a mental health evaluation.
Then he was free.
At the time, police did not apply for a "red flag" protection order against him.
This is how the suspect in the shooting in Buffalo legally obtained the weapons with which he committed the massacre
The Red Flag Law, also known as the extreme risk protection order law, is designed to prevent anyone who shows signs of posing a threat to themselves or others from purchasing a firearm, according to the Firearms website. New York.
But, because the assessment did not represent a binding commitment, it did not prevent the alleged shooter from purchasing or possessing a gun under federal law, said Beau Duffy, a spokesman for the New York State Police.
More measures after shooting in Buffalo
Since the shooting, Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a package of gun laws, as well as other changes to the protocol for enforcing the law when a person demonstrates that they may be a risk to themselves or others.
House of Representatives passes a bill to prevent domestic terrorism after the mass shooting in Buffalo
On Wednesday, Hochul said he would sign an executive order requiring state police to file an "extreme risk protection order" under the red flag law when they believe an individual is a threat to themselves or others.
The gun law package would aim to close loopholes regarding specific types of guns that fall outside of current regulations, including high-powered concealed weapons and those that can be modified to hold high-capacity magazines, it added.
The proposed legislation would fix "just one of those huge loopholes you can drive a truck through," he said.
CNN's Mark Morales, Eric Levenson, Shimon Prokupecz, Kimberly Berryman, Liam Reilly, Mark Morales and Kristina Sgueglia all contributed to this report.
AttackerBuffaloSurvivors
