Another Massacre – Another Missed Opportunity to Stop the Madness

Last spring, Payton Gendron, 17-years-old and a minor, was accused of making racist and threatening comments at his Susquehanna Valley High School, and state troopers were called to the school. He was admitted to a hospital for a couple of days, but had no further interaction with law enforcement officials after his release. 

 

Approximately one year later, on Saturday, this same 18-year-old young man traveled from Conklin, New York, to Buffalo, New York, a trip of about 200 miles.

 

He shot and killed six women and four men, and wounded three others, in the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo. The supermarket is in a neighborhood populated with mostly black shoppers. Eleven of the victims were black. The act is being considered a hate crime, and is being investigated as possibly a domestic terrorism act as well. 

 

It has been reported that Gendron’s intention was to continue his rampage down the street. “It appeared that his plans were to drive out of here and continue driving down Jefferson Avenue looking to shoot more black people as he could and possibly go to another store location,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

 

There is evidence, according to a police statement during a news conference on Sunday, that the shooter checked out the street and the store in advance, in preparation for the attack.

 

There seems to be no doubt as to what the shooter’s agenda was. Federal investigators have a racist, White Supremacist, 180-page document, allegedly written by Gendron. The writer claims that the massacre at the supermarket was directed against all non-white, non-Christian people. The document says that Buffalo was chosen because of its large population of non-whites. The “manifesto” is being examined for its authenticity. 

 

It has been reported that Gendron had threatened to massacre students and staff at his high school in Conklin, New York. In response to this alarming revelation, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Gendron was evaluated by mental health workers after the threat but had no contact with law enforcement.

 

“Nobody called in,” he said. “Nobody called any complaints,” Gramaglia said.

 

New York State’s “red flag” law allows police, family and health or school staff to intervene in cases where people show signs of being a threat to themselves or to others. The law’s intention is to prevent the kind of massacre that occurred in the Buffalo supermarket, and hopefully prevent other atrocities such as ones that are routinely occurring all over the country, in schools, churches, malls, and even in your local Walmart. 

 

Invoking the red flag law in Buffalo might have prevented Gendron from owning a gun, and might have prevented the shooting. 

 

The US has a long history of mass shootings, and mistakes that were made due to lack of action after threatening statements by individuals who were clearly in need of intervention. Many of these massacres could have been prevented if police and mental health departments had investigated, and prevented threatening individuals from purchasing guns or other weapons. 

 

An example is the 2018 killing of 17 innocent young people at a Parkland, Florida high school. Police had received several complaints about the shooter before the massacre occurred. 

 

A gunman was able to kill several people in a Texas church and was able to buy a firearm, even though police had a long history of violence on his record. 

 

The document that police are saying was allegedly written by Gendron, described his racist philosophy. It says that the US should be white only, and that non-whites and non-Christians should be expelled from the country. 

 

The massacre was live-streamed on Twitch, a live video-streaming service, and was quickly taken down, but parts of the video are still circulating online. 

 

Wearing tactical gear and armed with an assault weapon, Gendron shot 11 blacks and two whites. 

 

“This individual came here with the express purpose of taking as many black lives as he possibly could,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at a news conference Sunday.

 

Several weapons were found at the scene, including a legally purchased assault rifle that was used in the attack, a hunting rifle and a shotgun.