The Buffalo mass shooter and self-proclaimed white supremacist appeared in court immediately after Saturday’s shooting. Payton Gendron,18, reportedly drove several hours to carry out the shooting at Toms Market.
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According to WKBW, Gendron’s public defense attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf and his next court date is scheduled on May 19 for a felony hearing. Currently, the FBI is investigating the shooting as a racially motivated attack and hate crime.
As previously reported, Gendron wrote a 108-page manifesto relating to a conspiracy theory about minorities replacing white people in the United States. “If there’s one thing I want you to get from these writings, it’s that White birth rates must change. Every day the White population becomes fewer in number. “To maintain a population the people must achieve a birth rate that reaches replacement fertility levels, in the western world that is about 2.06 births per woman,” he wrote in one of the excerpts.
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Gendron said during the hearing that he understood the charges against him and a forensic exam will be performed so prosecutors can present the case in front of a grand jury.
In an updated report, eleven of the victims of the shooting are African American and two are white. Among those injured was the son of a staffer of New York Senator Tim Kennedy.
“To say that I’m heartbroken tonight doesn’t even do it justice. I’m devastated. I’m angry. And I’m thinking about the families who won’t welcome a loved one home tonight. All because an individual filled with pure evil made a calculated decision to senselessly take innocent lives. Let us be clear: this was a hate crime and an act of terrorism on our community. It was racially motivated, extremism in its most pure form.”‘
Three of the survivors were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. One of them was discharged and the other two were listed in stable condition.