Online diary: Buffalo gunman plotted assault for months

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The white gunman accused of massacring 10 Black folks at a Buffalo grocery store wrote as far back as November about staging a livestreamed assault on African Americans, practiced shooting from his car and traveled hours from his home in March to scout out the shop, in line with detailed diary entries he seems to have posted online.

The creator of the diary posted hand-drawn maps of the grocery retailer along with tallies of the number of Black folks he counted there, and recounted how a Black safety guard at the supermarket confronted him that day to ask what he was as much as. A Black security guard was among the many lifeless in Saturday’s taking pictures rampage.

The diary taken from the chat platform Discord got here to light two days after 18-year-old Payton Gendron allegedly opened fireplace with an AR-15-style rifle on the Tops Friendly Market. He was sporting physique armor and used a helmet digital camera to livestream the massacre on the internet, authorities said.

He surrendered inside the grocery store and was arraigned on a murder cost over the weekend. He pleaded not responsible and was jailed under a suicide watch. Federal authorities are contemplating bringing hate crime costs.

Copies of the web materials have been shared with The Associated Press by Marc-André Argentino, a research fellow at the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence.

A transcript of the diary entries was apparently posted publicly sometime ahead of the attack. It was not clear how many individuals might need seen the entries. Consultants mentioned it was potential however unlikely the diary could have been altered by someone other than the writer.

The FBI’s top agent in Buffalo, Stephen Belongia, indicated on a call with other officers Monday that investigators are looking at Gendron’s Discord exercise, citing posts last summer time about physique armor and weapons and others last month wherein he taunted federal authorities. Belongia gave no particulars in the call, a recording of which the AP obtained.

However in an April 17 put up apparently by Gendron, he exhorted readers to kill brokers from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Messages seeking remark have been left with Gendron’s attorneys. Nobody answered the door at his family’s home.

The violence unfold grief and anger in Buffalo and past.

Former Buffalo Fireplace Commissioner Garnell Whitfield Jr., who misplaced his 86-year-old mother, Ruth Whitfield, in the taking pictures, asked how the country may allow its historical past of racist killings to repeat itself.

“We’re not just hurting. We’re angry,” Whitfield stated at a news conference with civil rights legal professional Ben Crump and others. “We deal with folks with decency, and we love even our enemies.”

“And also you expect us to maintain doing this over and time and again — over once more, forgive and neglect,” he continued. “While folks we elect and belief in offices around this nation do their finest to not defend us, to not contemplate us equal.”

The victims also included a man shopping for a cake for his grandson; a church deacon serving to individuals get home with their groceries; and a supermarket security guard.

The web diary particulars a March 8 reconnaissance go to the writer made to Buffalo, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Gendron’s home in Conklin, New York.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia stated at a information convention that there was data indicating Gendron was in Buffalo in March, however Gramaglia declined to say extra.

The commissioner said quite a few investigators are working to acquire and overview Gendron’s online postings.

“There’s numerous social that’s being looked at, or that’s being verified, captured,” Gramaglia said. “A few of that takes warrants that must be served on various social media platforms.”

The writer of the diary talked about checking out targets including the Tops Friendly Market and mentioned a security guard asked what he was doing after his second go to of the day. He gave an excuse about gathering information and soon left — “a detailed name,” he wrote.

A 180-page document purportedly written by Gendron stated the attack was meant to terrorize all nonwhite, non-Christian people and get them to leave the nation. Federal authorities mentioned they're working to substantiate the doc’s authenticity.

Gendron had briefly been on authorities’ radar last spring, when state police were called to his highschool for a report that the then-17-year-old had made threatening statements.

Belongia, the FBI agent, stated Gendron had responded to a query about future plans by saying that he wished to commit a murder-suicide.

A December Discord put up that Gendron apparently made stated he had given that answer to a query about retirement in an economics class and ended up spending “one of many worst nights of my life” in a hospital.

Gramaglia mentioned Gendron had no additional contact with legislation enforcement after a psychological health evaluation that put him in a hospital for a day and a half. On the call with Belongia, Gramaglia said state police “did every part within the confines of the regulation” at that time.

It was unclear whether officials might have invoked New York’s “pink flag” regulation, which lets law enforcement, school officials and households ask a courtroom to order the seizure of weapons from folks thought of harmful.

Federal regulation bars folks from owning guns if a judge has decided they've a “mental defect” or they've been compelled into a mental institution. An analysis alone wouldn't trigger the prohibition.

On the White Home, President Joe Biden, who deliberate a visit Tuesday to Buffalo, paid tribute to the slain safety guard, retired police officer Aaron Salter.

Salter fired repeatedly at the attacker, placing his armor-plated vest at least as soon as before being shot and killed. Biden mentioned Salter “gave his life attempting to save lots of others.”

Authorities stated that in addition to the ten Black people killed, three folks had been wounded: one Black, two white.

Zeneta Everhart stated her son, supermarket worker Zaire Goodman, was serving to a shopper outside when he saw a person get out of a car in army gear and level a gun at him. Then a bullet hit Goodman in the neck.

“Mom! Mother, get here now, get right here now! I bought shot!” he informed his mom by cellphone. Goodman, 20, was out of the hospital and doing well Monday, his mother mentioned.

In livestreamed video of the attack circulating online, the gunman skilled his weapon on a white individual cowering behind a checkout counter, however stated, “Sorry!” and didn’t shoot. Screenshots purporting to be from the printed seem to indicate a racial slur against Black folks scrawled on his rifle.

___

This story has been corrected to indicate that Whitfield, not his father, is a former Buffalo fireplace commissioner.

___

Associated Press reporters Robert Bumsted in Buffalo; Michael Hill in Conklin; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Michael Balsamo in Washington; and Karen Matthews, Aaron Morrison and Jennifer Peltz in New York; contributed to this report. Tucker reported from Washington, and Sisak from New York.