The Buffalo killer had threatened to carry out a shooting at his own high school

Payton Gendronthe 18-year-old gunman who authorities say killed 10 people in a Buffalo supermarketUnited States, had previously threatened to shoot up his high school and was sent for mental health treatment, a police official told The Associated Press.

The young man had appeared on police radar last year after he threatened to carry out a drive-by shooting. susquehanna high school at the time of graduation, the official said. New York State Police said troopers were called to Conklin’s school on June 8, 2021 for a report that a 17-year-old student had made threatening statements.

Police said the student was detained under a state mental health law and taken to a hospital for evaluation.

Federal agents interviewed the young man’s parents and searched several properties, a police source told the Globe Live Media on Sunday.

federal authorities are still trying to confirm the authenticity of a 180-page manifesto that was posted on the internet, which described the plans in detail and mentioned Payton Gendron by name, the source said. The authorities handle the hypothesis that the attack was due to the racial hate.

The parents of Gendron They are cooperating with investigators, said the source, who asked not to be identified.

A preliminary investigation determined that Gendron saw white supremacist websites and racist conspiracy theoriesand had studied the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand in 2019 and the massacre in Norway in 2011, the source said.

It is not clear why Gendron traveled 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Conklin, state From New York to Buffalo and even that particular supermarket, located in an area with a large black population.

Authorities believe Gendron investigated the demographic makeup of the area around the Tops Friendly Market supermarket. and was on the lookout for communities with large African-American populations, the source said.

“This is too much. I’m trying to compose myself but I can’t. You can’t even go to the store in peace, this is crazy.”Yvonne Woodard, a Buffalo resident, told the Globe Live Media.

The police chief of Buffalo Joseph Gramaglia declared on Sunday that Gendron had been in town “at least the day before.”

“Apparently he came here to investigate the area, to reconnoitre the area before he perpetrated this evil and disgusting act.”Gramaglia declared in an interview with the ABC channel.

Customers and a retired police officer working as a security guard were among the 10 killed in the massacre.

The police said that the teenager shot a total of 11 black and two white people at the Tops Friendly Market supermarket on Saturday and that He broadcast the attack live through a camera attached to his body, before surrendering to the agents.

Among those killed was Aaron Salter, a retired police officer and security guard, who shot Gendron multiple times, police chief Gramaglia said. A bullet hit the assailant’s armor, but did not penetrate it. Gendron then killed Salter, before shooting the other victims.

Ruth Whitfield also died, 86, the mother of retired Buffalo Fire Chief Garnell Whitfield, who in a statement to the Buffalo News praised her mother, saying “she was a mother to orphans.” She was “a blessing to all,” she added.

Another victim was Katherine Massey, who had gone to the store to shop, according to the newspaper.

It was not immediately clear why Gendron traveled 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Conklin, New York, to Buffalo. and even that particular supermarket in an area with a large black population, but Images from the Twitch platform appeared to show a racist slur etched into the rifle he used in the attack along with the number 14, a possible reference to a white supremacist slogan.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia expressly called the shooting a hate crime. “This was pure evil”Garcia added.

Twitch said in a statement that it ended Gendron’s stream “less than two minutes after the violence began.”

The mass shooting further unsettled a nation wracked by racial tensions, gun violence and a spate of hate crimes. A day earlier, Dallas police had said they were investigating the shootings in the city’s Koreatown as hate crimes.

The attack of Buffalo it came just a month after a Brooklyn subway shooting wounded 10 and just over a year after 10 were killed in a Colorado supermarket shooting.

GendronConfronted by police in the store’s lobby, he put the rifle to his neck, but the officers convinced him to drop it. He was indicted later Saturday on a murder charge and appeared before a judge in paper overalls.

A police officer told The Associated Press that detectives were looking into whether he had posted a manifesto online. The agent is not allowed to speak publicly about the matter and did so on condition of anonymity.

the police of Buffalo declined to comment on a document that apparently explains the Racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic beliefs of the attacker, including the desire to expel everyone who is not of European descent from the United States. The document indicates that it was inspired by the gunman who killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.