The man who killed 10 people in a racially motivated mass shooting in New York’s Buffalo area on Saturday appeared to have racist slogans daubed on his gun, according to stills from a video of the attack.
The shooter entered the bustling Tops Friendly Market area in the 1200 block of Jefferson Avenue in the state’s second-largest city, in a predominantly black neighborhood, and shot and killed 13 people, 11 of whom were black.
The incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime and a suspect, Payton Gendron, 18, of Broome County, New York, has been arrested alive.
The Buffalo shooter’s semi-automatic weapon had the word N written across the barrel in white paint and the number 14 – a known white supremacist slogan
(Screenshot/Twitter)
Close-ups of a video of Saturday’s attack, filmed by the shooter himself, show the word N and the number 14 – a known white supremacist code – written on the gun’s barrel in white paint.
A government official said “14” refers to a 14-word statement popular with white supremacists, according to Buffalo News.
“The statement is: ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white people,'” the official said. It was invented by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order.
The official said the suspect was a “very troubled young man” who had previously threatened violence.
“A school official reported that this very troubled young man had made statements indicating that he wanted to do a shooting, either at a graduation ceremony or sometime after,” the official told the current of the case.
A 180-page hate manifesto, allegedly written by Mr. Gendron, has also been circulated on social media and contains racist and anti-Semitic views.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the shooter intentionally sought to take “as many black lives as possible” and the attack was racially motivated.
The Independent Gt