The suspected gunman in Saturday’s racially motivated supermarket attack in Buffalo previously garnered police attention by threatening a shooting at his upstate New York high school, an official said.
New York State Police responded to Susquehanna High School in Conklin on June 8, 2021, after a then-17-year-old student made the threat, the unnamed official told The Associated Press.
Payton Gendron, 18, was arrested Saturday in connection with the shooting at a Tops Friendly Market store in Buffalo that left 10 dead and three wounded. Eleven of the victims were Black.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said the suspect was evaluated after the incident last June.
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“The individual was brought in for a mental health evaluation,” Gramaglia said at a press conference in Buffalo on Sunday. “He was evaluated and then released.”
The FBI said Gendron wasn’t on his agency’s radar before Saturday’s shooting.
Authorities are investigating a 180-page manifesto allegedly written by Gendron that says the Zip code where the supermarket is located has “the highest Black percentage that is close enough to where I live.”
Gendron is from Conklin, located about 200 miles southeast of Buffalo. Gendron has been charged with murder and is in custody without bail.
“This individual came here with the express purpose of taking as many Black lives as he could,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at Sunday’s press conference.
With News Wire Services
