SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, May 15, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — The Salt Lake City NAACP has released a statement on the mass shooting Saturday in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, which officials have said was racially motivated.
The suspect, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, a White man who shared racist views on social media, killed 10 people and injured three, according to reports. Of those 13, 11 victims were Black. The shooting site, Tops Friendly Market, is in a predominantly Black neighborhood of the city.
Local NAACP response
“When we have main stream xenophobic, race baiting, banning Black and Brown and LGBTQ Book authors and bigotry, this is what happens,” it says.
“White 18-year-old from another city hours outside of Buffalo New York came in to the Black area grocery store and started shooting and 10 people are dead, 13 shot, 11 Blacks and 2 Whites. He had engraved a racial slur on the gun. He had white Supremacy posters and other hate material at his apartment and in his social media. While shooting, he was live streaming.
“He wore a helmet and bulletproof vest. The security guard was a retired black police officer. He was killed. The officer shot him but it didn’t kill him, the suspect.
“Authorities said he was a white supremacist and the majority of the people that he shot were African-Americans and he targeted them.”
