Mom Discovered From Video on Facebook That Her 30-YO Daughter Was Killed in Buffalo Mass Shooting

Trigger Warning: This story mentions racism, gun violence and death that may be disturbing to readers. 

When an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at a Buffalo supermarket on May 14, 2022, he was targeting the Black community, an official familiar with the investigation revealed, according to CNN. 

The gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others at the Tops Friendly Markets store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo. As per the officials, eleven people who were shot were Black. The ten victims—six females and four males—range in age from 20 to 86.

The authorities also said that three survivors were hospitalized with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. Four of the shooting victims were store employees while the rest were customers.

The suspect, identified as Payton S. Gendron from Conklin, New York, wrote a White supremacist manifesto online, before traveling about 200 miles to the store and live-streamed the attack.

The gunman, wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, shot four people in the parking lot of a Tops supermarket around 2:30 p.m., three fatally. He proceeded inside the store where he was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security, police said, per ABC News. 

One of the victims was a 30-year-old woman who was sent to the supermarket by her mother. The woman got to the supermarket, but never returned home, according to New York Post. The unnamed mother got to know that her daughter would never make it back home when she came across a graphic Facebook footage showing the young woman being shot.

The mother came across a video of her adult child walking out of the store on Facebook. Then, she watched in horror as accused white supremacist shooter, Gendron allegedly gunned her down. However, it is unclear if the mom came across Gendron’s brief live stream of his attack, which lasted about 2 minutes on Twitch before the streaming platform pulled it down, or was seeing other footage.

The woman’s daughter was among the first people allegedly killed by Gendron. The mother, who lives on Riley Street in Buffalo, had not been notified by police of her daughter’s death as of Saturday night.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia shared that police officers showed up at the store one minute after getting the first report of the shooting in progress and raced toward the gunfire to confront the suspect.

He said the suspect fired 50 shots during the attack and had several more loaded magazine clips when he was taken into custody.

Gramaglia said that the attack was a racist hate crime and will be prosecuted as such. "The evidence that we have uncovered so far makes no mistake that this is an absolute racist hate crime. It will be prosecuted as a hate crime," he said. "This is someone who has hate in their heart, soul and mind."

Gendron, the suspect, surrendered to police and was taken into custody. He was charged with first-degree murder, prosecutors said, and pleaded not guilty in court Saturday night, Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah told CNN.

The suspect is currently being held in isolation under suicide watch.

The Buffalo attack was the deadliest US mass shooting of the year. There have been at least 198 mass shootings so far in 2022, per CNN.

References:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/15/us/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-sunday/index.html

https://nypost.com/2022/05/15/mom-learns-daughter-was-killed-in-buffalo-shooting-on-facebook/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/reported-mass-shooting-upstate-york-tops-supermarket/story?id=84721175

Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Scott Olson