A crowd gathers as police investigate a mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket.Joshua Bessex/AP
Ten people were killed and three others wounded when a gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, in what authorities described as a “racially motivated hate crime.” The massacre took place Saturday afternoon at a Tops supermarket in a largely Black neighborhood. According to police, the suspect—an 18-year-old white male—drove from “hours away” to carry out the attack, which he livestreamed on the internet. Police said the suspect was heavily armed and was wearing tactical gear. The shooter was taken into custody and was expected to be arraigned as early as Saturday evening.
At a law enforcement news conference Saturday, an FBI official said the bureau was investigating the attack as both a hate crime and as “racially motivated violent extremism.”
“It’s like walking onto a horror movie, but everything is real. It is Armageddon-like,” a police official told the Buffalo News. “It is so overwhelming.” The paper reported that the shooter was “cloaked in body armor and had a military grade helmet”:
As many as five bodies were found in the parking lot, the onsite police official said.
“Bullets and blood are everywhere,” the source said.
Shonnell Harris, an operation manager at the Tops, said she heard gun shots and ran frantically through the store, falling several times before exiting out the back. She saw the shooter, whom she described as a white man wearing camouflage…
The shooter was cloaked in body armor and had a military grade helmet on his head.
This is a developing story. We will update it with more details as they are confirmed.
