Buffalo shooting – live: Mitch McConnell says Payton Gendron was ‘deranged’ and calls racism ‘abhorrent’
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Ten people are dead and a suspect is in custody after a gunman with a rifle and body armour opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York on 14 May, believed to be one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history, and the deadliest mass shooting in the US in 2022.
The shooting took place at Tops Friendly Market in the 1200 block of Jefferson Avenue in the state’s second-largest city, in a predominantly Black neighbourhood that authorities believe the suspect had specifically targeted. Thirteen people in total were shot. Among the victims, 11 were Black.
Close-up shots from a video of Saturday’s attack, which police say was filmed by the gunman himself, show the N-word and the number 14 — a known white supremacist code — written on the barrel of the gun in white paint.
A “manifesto” has been found online, connected to the 18-year-old suspect Payton Gendron, that references racist and white nationalist tropes and far-right conspiracy theories.
President Joe Biden arrived in Buffalo on Tuesday to “grieve” with the community and delivered remarks where he called Saturday’s attack “straightforward terrorism”.
“Hate will not prevail, white supremacy will not have the last word,” he said during a speech at a Buffalo community centre.
What we know about another horrifying US shooting
A 68-year-old Las Vegas man has been identified as the suspect who opened fire on churchgoers Sunday in Laguna Woods, California - in an attack authorities said may have been politically motivated.
David Chou has been booked on one felony count of murder and five felony counts of attempted murder, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Monday.
One person was killed and five others injured Sunday afternoon when a man attacked a lunch banquet at Geneva Presbyterian Church – before other members of the Taiwanese congregation tackled and hog-tied the suspect’s legs with extension cords.
More details below, from Sheila Flynn.
Gunman, victim identified in Laguna Woods church shooting motivated by politics, hate
Orange County officials on Monday said David Chou has been booked on murder, attempted murder charges
Stephen Colbert condemns Tucker Carlson for amplifying ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory
The Late Show comedian Stephen Colbert has condemned Fox News host Tucker Carlson for amplifying conspiracy theories.
During the 16 May episode of The Late Show, Colbert addressed the recent shooting in a Buffalo, New York grocery store that left 10 dead. The alleged shooter reportedly used rhetoric consistent with the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory in an online screed laying out his reasoning for the attack.
“So where does anyone get an idea that monstrous?” Colbert asked. “It used to be only from the farthest right-wing fringe organisations – your Stormfronts, your neo-Nazis.”
He added: “But these days, you can see it every night on TV, thanks to Fox News host and deer caught masturbating in the headlights Tucker Carlson.”
Amanda Whiting has the story.
Stephen Colbert condemns Tucker Carlson for ‘Great Replacement’ theory
Alleged shooter in the recent Buffalo tragedy had mentioned the theory online
What a survivor of Christchurch hate shooting has to say about Buffalo
Temel Atacocugu was shot nine times during the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacres, where a white supremacist in New Zealand killed 51 people at two mosques during Friday prayers.
Mr Atacocugu says his heart goes out to the survivors in Buffalo, and he hopes extremists realise that their violence hasn’t had the desire effect of diving people along racial lines.
“Violence does not solve the problem. They should see that. People, including the extremists, should see that violence does not fix anything,” he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Peace will fix it. They have to learn to talk with people around them, too.”
WATCH: Seth Meyers says Tucker Carlson helped inspire Buffalo shooting
Seth Meyers is one of the many commentators arguing that mainstream conservative figures like Fox News’s Tucker Carlson helped legitimise the racist and white supremacist ideas that inspired the Buffalo mass shooting, including the “Great Replacement” theory.
Mr Carlson “wants to pretend it’s not a problem because he’s also openly and repeatedly promoted replacement theory on his show” the late night host said in a passionate segment.
Watch the full clip, and read our story on how celebrities are reacting to the Buffalo shooting.
John Legend and Seth Meyers hit out at Tucker Carlson after mass shooting
Legend described a Fox News segment in which Carlson promoted the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ as ‘sickening and dangerous’
Buffalo shooter considered attack at school or church, chats show
Before deciding on shooting up a supermarket in Buffalo, accused gunman Payton Gendron considered attacking a school or Black church instead, private Discord chat logs show.
He drove nearly 200 miles away from his predominantly white hometown of Conklin, New York, to carry out his plan, because the Buffalo area has a higher percentage of Black people.
How New York’s red flag law failed to catch the Buffalo shooter despite previous warning signs
A year before he allegedly opened fire in a Buffalo supermarket, Payton Gendron was held by New York State Police and given a mental health evaluation after he made comments in class about committing a murder-suicide.
New York has a red flag law, which bars people with a record of being a threat to themselves or others from buying guns, yet the teen managed to obtain one anyway.
“It was designed exactly for this circumstance,” David Pucino, the deputy chief counsel at Giffords Law Center, a gun-safety group, told NBC News.
Now, New York officials are pushing to investigate how Mr Gendron slipped through the cracks.
No one involved in the investigation into the teen’s threats at school initiated the court process that would have impeded his access to guns.
“I’ve asked for the investigation of exactly what transpired there,” Governor Kathy Hochul told WKSE radio on Monday.
“There was nothing that flagged that he wouldn’t be able to — from that encounter, at the time — be able to go into a store and purchase a gun,” she added. “Now, we need to question that, as well. There’s a lot of layers here that we need to get to the bottom of and find out if changes need to be made.”
What Payton Gendron’s 673-page diary reveals about the Buffalo shooting
Prior to the Buffalo shooting, charged gunman Payton Gendron kept a nearly 700-page online diary detailing his descent into white supremacist hatred, and how he allegedly planned the massacre that killed 10 people, most of whom were Black.
Written under the pseudonym “Jimboboiii,” the diary tracks how the 18-year-old white man always felt socially isolated, and became radicalised as he spent more and more time on the notorious online messageboard 4chan.
“It’s not that I actually dislike other people, it’s just that they make me feel so uncomfortable I’ve probably spent actual years of my life just being online,” he wrote in an entry on 5 May. “And to be honest I regret it. I didn’t go to friend’s houses often or go to any parties or whatever. Every day after school I would just go home and play games and watch youtube, mostly by my self [sic].”
The teen seemed to be living an unremarkable life in Conklin, a small, mostly white town in upstate New York, and had plans to go to college as an engineer.
“I only really turned racist when 4chan started giving me facts,” he wrote in one entry.
The diary also gives new information about how the teen was involuntarily hospitalised in 2021 after making threats to shoot up his school.
“I spent 20 hours in a hospital’s emergency room on 5/28/2021,” he wrote in December. “This was because I answered murder/suicide to the question ‘what do you want to do when you retire?’ on an online assignment in my Economics class.”
He continued that he got out the hospital, and was still able to eventually buy a gun, because he convinced officials he had written that as a joke to get out of class.
The log also shows in shocking detail how the teen zeroed on Tops market because it was a heavily populated public place in a predominantly Black neighbourhood.
Is it right to use Buffalo shooter’s name in public? Is it safe?
Ever since Payton Gendron was arrested and charged with murdering 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket, there’s been a raging debate over whether those in law enforcement and the media should say his name aloud.
For some, focusing on the individual is a way to dive into the particulars of his identity and why he allegedly committed white supremacist violence. For others, avoiding using the name out loud is a way to center the victims touched by this tragedy and avoid inspiring imitators.
Many of the police and law enforcement officials involved in prosecuting the 18-year-old white supremacist have avoided speaking his name, preferring instead to use his inmate number.
Mass shooting expert and SUNY Oswego professor Jaclyn Schildkraut told WHAM that violent extremists “feast off” of notoriety.
“We know from the excerpt I’ve seen from the manifesto he idolized the Christ Church shooter in New Zealand,” she said. “There are a lot of parallels and that individual got a lot of attention and we know this individual from Buffalo is trying to incite others to do the same thing.”
News outlets like USA Today have committed to limited use of Mr Gendron’s name and photograph.
“We know that many shooters are motivated by attention, and we certainly don’t want to give it to them,” editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll wrote on Monday. “We have a public-safety responsibility to let readers know who they are, but will not amplify their hate.”
Experts warn of ‘global network’ of white supremacist violence
As more evidence is uncovered about Payton Gendron, the accused Buffalo shooter, it’s likely he drew his inspiration from other white supremacist extremists around the global.
In a screed believed to be authored by the 18-year-old, he cites as inspiration the Norwegian mass shooter who murdered 77 people at a left-wing summer camp in 2011, and a New Zealand man who killed 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
“This is very much a global network of inspirational events,” Stanislav Vysotsky, a sociologist at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, told NBC News. “The Christchurch shooter took inspiration from shooters in the U.S., and then he inspires shooters in the U.S. and they then inspire actions elsewhere.”
Mitch McConnell calls Buffalo shooter ‘deranged'
Senator Mitch McConnell is latest prominent Republican to have spoken out against the Buffalo mass shooting, in response to questions about whether the GOP’s hard-right turn helped inspire the racist violence that took place last week.
“This horrible episode in Buffalo is the result of a completely deranged young man who ought to suffer the severest possible penalty under the law,” Mr McConnell said on Tuesday, when asked about the shooter’s seeming belief in the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory.
“Racism of any sort is abhorrent in America and ought to be stood up to by everybody, both Republicans, Democrats, all Americans,” he added.
The Senate Minority Leader criticised Joe Biden, however, for not having tighter border policies.
“What I’m disturbed about with regard to the Southern Border is the relative openness of it. This administration has taken a number of steps in the direction of just throwing our border wide open once again and that ought to be addressed,” he said.
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