Ten people were killed and three more wounded in a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., on Saturday, with the FBI saying it will investigate the shooting as a hate crime.
The suspect, an 18-year-old white male, arrived at a Tops Friendly Market store “heavily armed,” Buffalo Police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told reporters at a press conference. Eleven of the victims of the shooting were black.
The suspect pleaded not-guilty to murder charges in court later on Saturday.
“It was straight-up, racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community, outside of the city of good neighbors as the mayor said, coming into our community and trying to inflict that evil upon us,” Erie County sheriff John Garcia said at the same press conference.
FBI special agent Stephen Belongia also said the bureau would open a hate-crimes investigation into the shooting.
The suspect posted a manifesto online outlining a plan to kill black people, a senior federal law-enforcement official told the New York Times.
Gramaglia said that one of the victims of the shooting was a “beloved” security guard at the supermarket who was a former Buffalo police officer. The guard engaged the suspect and managed to shoot him, however because the suspect was wearing “armored plating,” the bullet had no effect. According to Gramaglia, the suspect then shot and killed the guard, whom he called “a hero in our eyes.”
Live-streaming site Twitch confirmed to CNN that the suspect attempted to stream the shooting. A Twitch spokesperson said the company removed the livestream two minutes into the shooting.
New York governor Kathy Hochul, who is from the Buffalo area, condemned the shooting at a press conference on Saturday.
“I’m angry. I have seen violence from guns on the Brooklyn subway and now on the streets of Buffalo,” Hochul said, apparently referring to a shooting in Brooklyn last month. “A military-style execution targeting people who simply want to buy groceries in a neighborhood store. It strikes us to our very hearts to know that there is such evil that lurks out there.”
Hochul wrote on Twitter that she had ordered the New York State Police’s Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate the shooting.
We must confront the threat that white supremacism poses to our society head-on.
I have directed the @nyspolice Hate Crimes Task Force to assist in the investigation of the heinous shooting in Buffalo today.
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) May 15, 2022