A heavily armed 18-year-old white man shot 10 people dead on Saturday at a Buffalo, New York grocery store in a “racially motivated” attack that he live-streamed on camera, authorities said.
The gunman, who was wearing body armor and a helmet, was arrested after the massacre, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told a news conference.
Ten of the victims were dead, with three wounded. Eleven of these died because they were African American.
The gunman shot four people in the parking lot of the Tops Supermarket, three of them fatally. He then went inside, continuing his firing and injuring one more.
One of the victims of the store shooting was a retired police officer. He was working as an armed security guard at the store.
The police officer tried to stop the gunman, but the triggerman shot him.
An armed security guard was killed by the shooter.
The policeman approached the gunman to talk, and they traded shots. The guard was shot before he was able to kill the suspect.
The FBI’s special agent in charge of the Buffalo field office, Stephen Belongia says that the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
Belongia said this incident will be investigated as a hate crime and as a case of racially motivated violence.
John Garcia of the Erie County Sheriff described the attack as “pure evil.”
“It was straight up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community,” he said.
Erie County District Attorney John Flynn says the evidence indicates that racial animosity was involved in the attack, but he declined to elaborate.
