TUESDAY, MAY 17 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A
buffalo shootingGendron wrote. “It was not a
joke, I wrote that down because
that’s what I was planning to do.”
In mid-November, according
to the messages, Gendron posted
to Discord a copy of a document
published by Brenton Tarrant, an
avowed racist who killed 51 Mus-
lims in attacks on two mosques
in New Zealand in 20 19. Sepa-
rately, Gendron claimed author-
ship of an anonymous Nov. 9 p ost
on the 4 chan message board, a
site notorious for extremist dis-
cussion, which said “a brenton
tarrant event will happen again
soon.”
After he posted claims about
“inferior” races, the messages
show, Gendron wrote on Dec. 5
that he had d ecided it was t ime t o
stop simply posting on the Inter-notice of his speeding ticket
arrived at his parents’ home.
“[N]ow my dad knows I was
hours away doing something I
shouldn’t have,” he wrote, adding
that he wished he was ready and
could carry out the attack im-
mediately. He later added that he
had falsely claimed to his father
that he skipped school to hike in
a state park.
At the end of March, Gendron
mused about other areas he
might attack such as majority-
Black churches or schools. “I
would consider breaking into a
Buffalo elementary school but
those places are locked up tight
plus I get a strange feeling when
thinking avout massacreing c hil-
dren,” he wrote.
At times, Gendron flaunted
the apparent lack of interest in
him by law enforcement.
“[H]mm I wonder why the FBI
isn’t tackling me right now?
probably because they want it to
happen,” he wrote in an April 28
post that included images of a
shotgun and hunting rifle. An
FBI spokesperson told The Post
that the bureau was not aware of
Gendron before the shooting in
Buffalo.
The following evening, the
first installment of Gendron’s
online messages were uploaded
to the filesharing platform Medi-
aFire by an anonymized account
in the United States. The docu-
ment was available to download
until Monday morning but was
removed after The Post contact-
ed MediaFire for comment.
Derek Labian, MediaFire’s
chief executive, said in an inter-
view that the account associated
with the document had been
disabled and records from it had
been preserved for law enforce-
ment.
On Thursday, a second batch
of messages said to have been
posted to Discord was also up-
loaded to MediaFire. “This is
where I’m gonna end it, thanks
for the fun,” it concluded.
Two days later, a gunman ar-
rived at Tops in Buffalo and
opened fire.Mark Berman contributed to this
report.veilled the movements of the
store’s security guards and made
observations of the weapons they
carried. Detailed sketches of the
store’s floor plan were included
in the messages, together with
multiple photographs, including
a parking spot “for the attack.”
The written account said its
author was stopped and ticketed
for driving at 6 4 mph in a 40 mph
section of State Highway 36 en
route to Buffalo on March 8. The
Post obtained a copy of a speed-
ing ticket issued to Gendron by a
New York state trooper that day
that matches those details.
Inside the supermarket,
Gendron noted, there were
“many blacks” at the cashiers’
area and in other locations. In a ll,
53 Black people and six White
people were inside the store, he
wrote, along with two Black secu-
rity guards carrying what he said
were Glock pistols.
Gendron recounted being con-
fronted by one of the guards after
having entered the store three
times that day.
“I’ve seen you go in and out ...
What are you doing?” the guard
asked him, according to the mes-
sages. Gendron replied that he
was “collecting consensus d ata”
before making excuses and head-
ing for his car, he wrote, adding:
“In hindsight that was a close
call.” Authorities said a security
guard fired at the shooter during
Saturday’s attack in Buffalo, but
the suspect was protected by
body armor and allegedly re-
turned fire, killing the guard.
Buffalo Police Commissioner
Joseph Gramaglia said during a
news conference on Monday that
investigators had learned the
suspect was in the Buffalo area i n
early March.
Gendron reported in the mes-
sages that between visits to Tops
that day, he suffered a panic
attack while driving and crashed
his car into a pole, knocking off
one of his side mirrors. Despite
the setbacks, however, Gendron
appeared satisfied with the trip.
“Overall had a nice full-day ex-
perience,” he wrote.
On March 26, however,
Gendron feared his entire plan
had been “compromised” after afrom the Bureau of Alcohol, To-
bacco and Firearms visited his
shop — an old one-room house —
on Saturday night to collect pa-
perwork from the sale.
The messages detailed
Gendron’s purchases of other
equipment he planned to use in
an attack, including a military-
style helmet from eBay and body
armor plates bought online from
RMA Armament of Centerville,
Iowa. Confirming Gendron’s pur-
chase, R MA chief executive Blake
Waldrop said in a statement that
the firm was “devastated by this
tragedy” and was praying for the
families of the victims.
Having considered attacking
in other cities including Roches-
ter, Gendron wrote online on
Feb. 17 that he had a “new plan”:
Buffalo, which had a higher pro-
portion of Black residents. “TOPS
Friendly Markets,” he wrote,
“damn that is looking good.”
The messages detailed a
March 8 trip to the supermarket
in which Gendron allegedly sur-net and to act. “I will carry out an
attack against the replacers, and
will even livestream the attack,”
he wrote.
Around t hat time, according to
the messages, he bought a Moss-
berg 500 shotgun. He already
owned a hunting rifle that he had
received as a Christmas present
from his father when he was 16,
according to the messages. Ef-
forts to reach Gendron’s parents
were unsuccessful.
Gendron recounted making
frequent trips to gun stores in the
messages, recording at least 15
visits across six stores between
Dec. 8 and Jan. 19.
He hid weapons and ammuni-
tion in his bedroom at his par-
ents’ home, according to the
messages, and feared at one
point that his mother might
discover the stockpile, jeopardiz-
ing his plans.
According to the messages and
the store’s owner, Gendron
bought a Bushmaster XM- 15 rifle
— the type of gun that was
allegedly used in Buffalo on Sat-
urday — from Vintage Firearms
in Endicott, N.Y., in January.
The owner of Vintage Fire-
arms, 75 -year-old Robert Donald,
confirmed to the New York Times
and ABC News on Sunday that he
sold the Bushmaster to Gendron.
He said that a background check
raised no flags and that agentsgrocery store. The shootings
were streamed live online. In a
separate 180 -page document
published two days before Satur-
day’s shooting, Gendron cited a
racist theory that non-Whites
were brought to the United
States to replace White people
for political purposes.
The 67 2-page compilation of
messages reviewed by The Post
was published during the weeks
before the attack in Buffalo. The
messages featured a screen name
that Gendron used on other plat-
forms, contained images of
Gendron’s face in selfies and
referenced events in his personal
life, such as a speeding ticket,
which The Post verified.
The compilation contained
posts by Gendron since Novem-
ber on Discord, an online mes-
saging platform where users may
create invite-only chat groups.
Original messages posted to
Discord by Gendron’s account
were not publicly available. The
company declined to say on Mon-
day how many people had been
able to see his posts before the
shooting. A spokesperson said
Discord removed a “small, pri-
vate” messaging server linked to
Gendron’s username, which it
discovered following the shoot-
ing, for breaching its policies on
violence and extremism.
“We extend our deepest sym-
pathies to the victims and their
families,” the spokesperson said
in a statement. “Hate and vio-
lence have no place on Discord.
We are doing everything we can
to assist law enforcement in the
investigation.”
In addition to laying out
mounting plans for a mass shoot-
ing, the messages amount to a
wide-ranging journal of a trou-
bled 18 -year-old, who described
killing and mutilating a cat and
being taken to a medical facility
for psychiatric evaluation after
he stated in a high school class
that he planned to commit “mur-
der/suicide.”
The June incident was re-
ferred to New York State Police,
according to a person familiar
with the school’s handling of it,
who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss confiden-
tial matters involving a student.
Gendron wrote in the messages
that the matter was dropped
when he said he had been joking
to get out of class. That account
was confirmed by the person.
“That is the reason I believe I
am still able to purchase guns,”
SUSPECT FROM A
Suspect detailed an attack on B lack people in online posts
MATT BURKHARTT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Police officers at the Tops grocery store in Buffalo on Monday. A gunman killed 10 people at the
supermarket on Saturday, and authorities say they’re investigating the shooting as a hate crime.BY JACLYN PEISERLast May, after a local official
lost a family member to gun
violence, Katherine “Kat” Massey
submitted a letter to the Buffalo
News calling for better federal
oversight of firearms. Mass shoot-
ings and street violence are on the
rise, she wrote, and the 2021
incident she referenced was “an-
other gut-wrenching account.”
On Saturday, Massey became a
victim of gun violence herself.
Massey, 72, was one of 10 peo-
ple killed and three injured dur-
ing what authorities are calling a
hate-fueled rampage at a Buffalo
grocery store in a predominantly
Black neighborhood. Eleven of
the 13 victims were Black, offi-
cials said. The incident is being
investigated as a hate crime.
Payton Gendron, an 18 -year-
old White man, was arrested and
charged with first-degree mur-
der. He pleaded not guilty and is
being held without bail. Gendron
displayed extremist behavior on-
line, law enforcement officials
said, and is believed to have
written a 180-page screed refer-
encing racist ideology and citing
several people who made interna-
tional headlines for mass killings.
Massey’s death is a blow to the
Black community in Buffalo, a
former county legislator told the
Buffalo News, adding that Massey
had a “powerful voice.” She was
passionate about education and
known for dressing up in cos-
tume and going to the local
schools, her sister, Barbara
Massey, told The Washington
Post.
“She was the most wonderful
person in the world. She’d cut
grass in the local park, do the
trees, give kids on the street toys.
That was my sister, anyone she
could help,” Barbara said.
Massey was also a frequent
contributor to the letters section
in the Buffalo News. Newspaper
archives show submissions going
back to 1999, when she criticized
the government for not providing
enough funds for medical facili-
ties for veterans. In the interim
years, she wrote biting critiques
of local officials and spoke out
about education issues.
In a 2009 letter to the editor,
Massey wrote a scathing review
of a local train station, calling it
“pitiful-personified.”
“It’s the darkest, coldest and
most uninviting of all the sta-
tions,” she wrote. “The walls, near
the down-under seating, are an
abstract of rusted, semi-painted
ugliness. Sometimes the train
rails area is strewn with soggy
litter. The symphony music via
the speakers, in that intimidating
chamber of gloom, is a surreal
joke.”
Massey had been concerned
about gun violence for years,
though she focused more on
weapons trafficking on the
streets. In 201 8, she wrote a piece
for the Buffalo Challenger, a
Black community newspaper,
about easy access to guns and the
city’s unsuccessful efforts to ar-
rest illegal firearms dealers. Thearticle opened with a chilling
description of people wailing in
grief for “their loved ones —
infants to grandparents — lost in
the rampage of gun murders.”
She referenced similar themes
in her letter last year for the
News. Massey wrote that federal
legislation is essential to address-
ing gun violence.
“Current pursued remedies
mainly inspired by mass killings
— namely, universal background
checks and banning assault
weapons — essentially exclude
the sources of our city’s gun
problems,” Massey wrote. “Illegal
handguns, via out of state gun
trafficking, are the primary cul-
prits.”
She also lamented Congress’s
inaction to repeal one federal law
requiring the FBI to scrub rec-
ords of firearms purchases 24
hours after someone clears a
background check and another
shielding gun sellers and manu-
facturers from liability if some-
one uses their product to commit
a violent crime.
Three months later, she wrote
about the issue again for the
Challenger, this time outlining
federal and local efforts made to
curb gun violence.
“Hallelujah!” she signed off.Victim pushed for more gun control
ROBERT KIRKHAM/BUFFALO NEWS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Katherine “Kat” Massey, seen in 2011, was one of 10 people killed
during a rampage at a Buffalo grocery store.Her ‘powerful voice’
often called for action
i n local publications“I will carry out anattack against thereplacers, and will evenlivestream the attack.”
A Dec. 5 m essage posted to
Discord referring to Black people,
from a w riter who identified
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