Copying the June 17, 2015 racist massacre of nine African Americans by21-year-old Dylann Roof at the Emanuel AME Church in Chareleston, S.C., 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron opened fire May 14 at Tops Friendly Market killing 10 black shoppers, injuring three others. Gendron used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle with a high-capacity magazine, banned in New York State. Buffalo police with the help of the FBI found a 180-page racist screed on the suspect’s web pages, laying out a plan of racially-charged violence. Gendron drove 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin, N.Y. Gendrone arrived the day before to case out the crime scene where he could conduct his rampage on African Americans. Authorities found bountiful evidence of Gendron’s racist intention to commit mass murder against African Americans. Gendron was only 18-years-of age.
Racially-motive violence was highlighted in the May 25, 2020 cop killing of George Floyd, an African American suffocated of nearly nine minutes on national TV before he expired. For months after Floyd’s death, it triggered riots, looting, arson and anarchy around the country for at least three months, prompting the country to reassess its views on racism. Gendron’s attack was a egregious racist attack driven by a wayward youth, determined like so many other teenage mass killers to make a statement about racism and youth violence. “The evidence we have uncovered makes no mistake: This is an absolute racist hate crime that will be prosecuted as a hate crime. This is someone who has hate in their heart, soul and mind,” said Buffalo Police Commissioner Josephe Gramaglia. Horrified by the vicious nature of the hate crime, authorities found their motive but still ask why?
Gendron faces under New York State law life in prison without the possibility of parole at the ripe age of 18. If there were ever a rationale for capital punishment, this would be it. Plotting to murder African Americans solely because of their race shows the sordid nature of the crime, requiring more than life in prison. Gendron laid-in-wait, plotted his massacre, using his AR-15 to mow down innocent people. It’s possible he watched carefully the Nov. 19, 2021 acquittal of 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse who killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin Aug. 25. 2020 during racial unrest months after the death of George Floyd. Rittenhouse claimed self-defense, something jurors accepted, when they deliberated his fate. But Gendron was a different kettle of fish, plotting carefully, like Dylann Roof in Charleston, to specifically target Black people while holding bible study.
Racially-driven massacres with youthful offenders have much in common with Islamic radicals, who are easily influenced by radical mullahs or imams preaching hate in madrases and mosques. When unhinged, most likely paranoid, youthful offenders get radicalized on the Internet, there’s little anyone can do to stop egregious acts of violence from taking place. Had Gendron’s Internet posting been tracked by the FBI, maybe they could have intercepted the lethal outburst before it occurred. There’s plenty of blame to go around, certainly with families that claim they saw no signs of anything violent brewing in their family members. Family members are often dumfounded saying they never saw anything violent in their next of kin. Neuroscientists know that undeveloped teenage brains [the prefrontal cortex] leave them vulnerable to influence and impulsive behavior, including violence, suicide and criminal acts.
Gendron came prepared with tactical gear and body armor knowing hecould be confronted by security guards or police. Gendron shot and killed Top Market security guard Aaron Salter. Salter discharged his firearm but it bounced off Gendron because of his body armor. Showing Gendron’s sick exhibitionism, he live-streamed the attack on Twitch but was quickly shut down less than two minutes into his rampage. Payton’s 180-paged manifesto gave authorities everything they need to know about his racist and terrorist motives, leaving the country shocked but obviously jaded over so many similar incidents. Picking a heavily Black supermarket was the perfect soft target to massacre African Americans innocently shopping for groceries. Gendron’s rants mirror white supremacist jargon, including the conspiracy theory known in racist circles as the “the great replacement.”
Gendron’s age and brain immaturity left him a perfect target for racist conspiracy theories like “the great replacement,” advanced by French racist Renaud Camus theorizing that white Europeans were being systematically replaced by North Africans and Middle Easterners. Like Osama bin Laden’s young programmed assassins that took down the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11, 2011, Gendron was radicalized as a racist on the Internet where hate speech can be found everywhere. When the Democrat Party and U.S. press calls former President Trump a racist, it’s for pure politics, knowing he doesn’t subscribe to any of the outrageous racist nonsense espoused by Gendron. Gendron was evaluated last years for potential threats against his high school. Whatever the mental health evaluation found, it wasn’t enough to stop yesterday’s massacre, something that could have been prevented.
