Accused Buffalo gunman followed a long trail to terror, officials say

By his own account, the suspected Buffalo supermarket gunman became a racist killer while bored online. According to a lengthy screed authorities believe Payton Gendron posted before allegedly killing 10 people on Saturday, the 18-year-old was drawn to hateful rhetoric from a mass murderer on the other side of the world.

As investigators unpack the disturbing details of Gendron’s alleged crimes, current and former law enforcement officials said he apparently hoped his shocking violence would draw attention from well beyond this small town in Upstate New York.

At the end of his senior year, someone called the state police to report that Gendron had made alarming comments threatening to shoot up graduation-related events, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation.

Law enforcement officials on Sunday offered few details about the high school threat investigation, saying Gendron was held overnight for evaluation, and then released. It was unclear whether, following the incident, he received further treatment.

“From what I have, it was a generalized threat; not a specific threat directed at a specific place or person,” said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia, who added that there was not anything explicitly racist about the alleged threat, and that it did not so far appear that authorities mishandled the situation. “The state police did their job to the fullest they could at that time,” he said.

In a rambling, 180-page declaration that authorities believe Gendron wrote and posted online, he proudly labels himself a white supremacist and his planned attack an act of terrorism, adding that he supports neo-Nazism, and revels in antisemitism.

The 18-year-old White man suspected of gunning down Black people at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood was reportedly a believer in “replacement theory” — the notion of a vast conspiracy by Democrats and/or Jews to achieve dominance by “importing” people of color to diminish the political power of White people.

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