(CNN)A mass shooting at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday was a racist hate crime and will be prosecuted as such, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday.
"The evidence that we have uncovered so far makes no mistake that this is an absolute racist hate crime. It will be prosecuted as a hate crime," he said. "This is someone who has hate in their heart, soul and mind."
The statement came a day after a gunman opened fire at the Tops Friendly Markets store, killing 10 people and wounding three. Eleven of the people who were shot were Black, officials said.
The suspect was identified as a rifle-toting 18-year-old from Conklin, New York, who allegedly wrote a White supremacist manifesto online, traveled about 200 miles to the store and livestreamed the attack, authorities said.
"We continue to investigate this case as a hate crime, a federal hate crime and as a crime perpetrated by a racially motivated, violent extremist," said Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI's Buffalo field office.
People gather outside a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were killed on Saturday.
The victims included a former Buffalo police lieutenant working as a security guard and the 86-year-old mother of Buffalo's retired fire commissioner, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said. Two people remain hospitalized in stable condition, a spokesman for Erie County Medical Center said Saturday night.
The suspect, Payton S. Gendron, surrendered to police and was taken into custody. He was charged with first-degree murder, prosecutors said, and pleaded not guilty in court Saturday night, Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah told CNN.
Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said Gendron is currently under suicide watch.
The attack bears similarities to a number of mass shootings in recent years that were motivated by hate and intended to be seen online, including the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
The Buffalo attack was the deadliest US mass shooting of the year. There have been at least 198 mass shootings so far in 2022, per the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not including the shooter.
Suspect targeted predominantly Black area
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Investigators are reviewing a 180-page purported manifesto that was posted online in connection with the shooting, two federal law enforcement sources told CNN. The author of the document, who claims to be Payton Gendron, confesses to the attack and describes himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an anti-Semite.
The manifesto's author says he bought ammo for some time but didn't get serious about planning the attack until January.
The author writes about his perceptions of the dwindling size of the White population and claims that White people are being replaced by non-Whites in a "White genocide." This "replacement theory," once a fringe idea, has recently become a talking point for Fox News' host Tucker Carlson as well as other prominent conservatives.
In the manifesto, the author says that the supermarket in Buffalo is in a zip code that "has the highest black percentage that is close enough to where I live."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told CNN that investigators believe the suspect targeted the busiest place in that area at the busiest time.
"This was targeted by zip code," Hochul said. "This was the highest concentration of African-Americans within hours."
The zip code that includes the store, 14208, is 78% Black, according to the US Census Bureau's 2020 American Community Survey. That is the highest percentage of Black population of any zip code in upstate New York.
Hochul said an AR-15 used in the shooting was purchased legally in a gun store in New York state but was modified with a high-capacity magazine, which is not legal in the state.
Hochul also told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that the suspect was "on the radar" of law enforcement. "Just as a high school student with respect to something he wrote in high school and was under surveillance at the time with medical authorities," she said.
Mayor Brown told CNN that the suspect surveilled both the community and the grocery store as part of the planning of his attack.
"It sounds like he was here for maybe several days from reports that I've been hearing and that he did surveil this community, was scouting the supermarket, actually talked to some people in the area," Brown told CNN.
How the shooting unfolded
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At around 2:30 p.m., the suspect drove to Tops Friendly Markets near the areas of Masten Park and Kingsley. Wearing tactical gear and armed with an assault weapon, the suspect allegedly shot and killed three people in the parking lot and wounded a fourth, according to a statement from Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn.
The suspect then entered the store and exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard who was a retired member of the Buffalo Police Department, the district attorney said. The guard was identified as Aaron Salter, Brown said.
Because the suspect wore heavy tactical gear, however, the guard's bullets did not have any effect, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Saturday.
"He was very heavily armed," the police commissioner said. "He had tactical gear, he had a tactical helmet on, he had a camera that he was livestreaming what he was doing."
Inside the store, nine people were shot before the suspect was apprehended by police, according to the district attorney's statement.
In a statement sent to CNN, livestreaming service Twitch confirmed the shooting was streamed and said the user "has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content."
CNN obtained a portion of the livestream that showed the suspect arriving at the supermarket in his vehicle. CNN is not airing the video.
People hug near the scene of the mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Markets store Saturday.
Grady Lewis said he was outside the supermarket when he heard seven or eight gunshots and saw a White man dressed in tactical gear spraying gunfire at the entry of the store. Law enforcement arrived within two minutes after the shooting began, Lewis told CNN affiliate WKBW. He "heard at least 20 or so shots" before the suspect exited the store.
"He came out, he put the gun to his head, to his chin. Then he dropped it and took off his bulletproof vest, then got on his hands and knees and put his hands behind his back," Lewis said, describing the moments the suspect was arrested by police. "I thought they were going to shoot him but they didn't shoot him."
"I still don't even believe it happened ... that a person would go into a supermarket full of people," he said. "It was horrible, it was really horrible."
The Tops Friendly Markets store released a statement Sunday saying it was heartbroken over the violence. "Tops has been committed to this community and to the city of Buffalo for decades and this tragedy will not change that commitment," the company said.
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