Buffalo Tops Massacre

People

Roberta A. Drury (32) (Helping her brother with cancer treatment); Margus D. Morrison (52) (School bus aide, father of six); Andre Mackneil (53) (Buying birthday cake for his 3); Aaron Salter Jr. (55) (Retired police officer/security guard who died heroically trying to stop the shooter); Geraldine Talley (62) (About to become first); Celestine Chaney (65) (Cancer survivor shopping for strawberries); Heyward Patterson (67) (Church deacon who provided taxi service for shoppers); Katherine "Kat" Massey (72) (Civil rights activist who advocated for gun control); Pearl Young (77) (Ran food pantry for 25 years); Ruth Whitfield (86) (Oldest victim, had just visited husband at nursing home)

The Buffalo Tops massacre of May 14, 2022, was a racially motivated mass shooting in which an 18-year-old white supremacist killed ten Black people and wounded three others at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in the predominantly Black East Side neighborhood of Buffalo, New York. The gunman, Payton Gendron, traveled approximately 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin, New York, specifically targeting this location because of its large Black population. He livestreamed the first two minutes of his attack on Twitch before the platform shut down the broadcast. Armed with a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle illegally modified to accept high-capacity magazines, wearing body armor and a military helmet with a camera, Gendron first shot four people in the parking lot, killing three, before entering the store and killing seven more. Retired Buffalo police officer Aaron Salter Jr., working as the store's security guard, fired at Gendron and struck his body armor, but the bullet failed to penetrate. Salter was then killed. Gendron surrendered to police after being confronted by officers outside the store. He became the first person in New York State history charged with domestic terrorism motivated by hate. On February 15, 2023, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole on state charges after pleading guilty to murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism. Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in a separate federal case. Payton Gendron was born on June 20, 2003, and grew up in Conklin, New York, a small town approximately 200 miles from Buffalo. In his 180-page manifesto posted online before the attack, he described how he was radicalized on 4chan while "bored" during the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020. His primary inspiration was Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, who had also livestreamed his attack. When researchers analyzed Gendron's manifesto through plagiarism software, they found that entire paragraphs had been copied from 4chan threads, racist websites, and Tarrant's manifesto. The document also included a 673-page Discord diary where Gendron posted multiple times daily between November 2021 and May 12, 2022—two days before the attack. Gendron embraced the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory—a white supremacist ideology claiming that white people are being systematically replaced by non-white populations through immigration and demographic changes, often with alleged Jewish orchestration. This racist conspiracy theory, popularized by French writer Renaud Camus in 2011, has motivated numerous mass shootings including Christchurch. After approximately two years of exposure to this ideology, Gendron came to believe it was his purpose to commit a violent attack to prevent what he perceived as an "uprising" against white people. At approximately 2:30 p.m. on May 14, 2022, Gendron arrived at the Tops supermarket wearing body armor, a military helmet, and tactical gear. He had researched the location specifically because the surrounding ZIP code had the highest percentage of Black residents within a reasonable driving distance. Before opening fire, his livestream captured him saying "just got to go for it." He shot four people in the parking lot, killing Roberta Drury, Heyward Patterson, and Aaron Salter Jr., while wounding Zaire Goodman in the neck. Goodman, a 20-year-old store employee who was collecting carts, was the only Black victim to survive. Inside the store, Gendron continued his rampage, shooting eight more people. He killed Ruth Whitfield (86), an 86-year-old grandmother who had just visited her husband at a nursing home; Pearl Young (77), who ran a food pantry for 25 years; Katherine Massey (72), a lifelong civil rights activist who had recently written a letter to the Buffalo News advocating for gun control legislation; Celestine Chaney (65), a breast cancer and brain aneurysm survivor shopping for strawberries to make shortcake; Geraldine Talley (62), who was about to become a first-time grandmother; Margus Morrison (52), a school bus aide buying snacks for movie night with his wife; and Andre Mackneil (53), who was purchasing a birthday cake for his 3-year-old son. Among those wounded were Jennifer Warrington (50), a pharmacist at the store who suffered a scalp wound from shrapnel, and Christopher Braden (55), who was shot in the leg and required surgery for an open fracture to his tibia and fibula. Both Warrington and Braden are white; the shooter spared some white victims he encountered, according to witness accounts. Police confronted Gendron as he exited the store. He put his rifle to his own neck but surrendered after negotiation. He was taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder, domestic terrorism motivated by hate, and other offenses. On November 28, 2022, Gendron pleaded guilty to all state charges. On February 15, 2023, Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan sentenced him to life in prison without parole, telling him "there is no place for you or your beliefs in a civilized society." He was the first person convicted under New York's domestic terrorism statute. The massacre prompted widespread mourning and calls for action against white supremacist radicalization online. President Biden visited Buffalo and met with victims' families. Governor Kathy Hochul announced $2.8 million in funding for victims and families and later committed $5 million toward a permanent memorial, "Seeing Us," designed by Jin Young Song and Douglass Alligood. In March 2024, a New York state judge ruled that Reddit and YouTube must face lawsuits alleging they played a role in Gendron's radicalization. Families of victims have also sued social media platforms including Meta and Snapchat.