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Outside a supermarket in a largely Black section of Buffalo, New York, mourners have been gathering to honor 10 people killed Saturday in a mass shooting, their pain intensified by what authorities say was the gunman’s racially charged motive.
Shock in this community and around the nation has multiplied as more details have emerged of a racist manifesto allegedly written by the 18-year-old White man suspected of traveling nearly 200 miles from his home to unleash an attack at the grocery in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black, officials said, and the massacre is being investigated as a hate crime. The victims range in age from 20 to 86, police said, among them a former police officer who tried to stop the gunman and a 62-year-old doing her regular grocery, shopping with her fiancé.
The shooting, which also left three wounded, was a “straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said. “This was pure evil.”
The gunman opened fire Saturday afternoon outside a Tops Friendly Markets store, shooting to death several people in the parking lot before entering the building. He exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard — who was killed — and shot more people inside, then exited and surrendered to police.
Investigators believe the suspect was in Buffalo a day before the shooting and did some reconnaissance at the Tops Friendly Markets store, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said. They also believe he acted alone, Gramaglia said.
The suspect, Payton S. Gendron, pleaded not guilty Saturday night to a charge of first-degree murder, Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah told CNN, and the district attorney has said he expects to file more charges. Gendron is in custody without bail and under suicide watch, Garcia said. If convicted, he faces a maximum of life in prison without parole.
“I’m sad, I’m hurt, I’m mad because I never thought this would have happened here in the city of Buffalo,” resident Liz Bosley told CNN affiliate Spectrum News NY1.
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