Last spring, at the end of the school year at Susquehanna Valley High School outside of Binghamton, NY, students were asked for a school project about their plans after graduation.
Payton Gendron, a senior, said he wanted to kill himself – to kill himself, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the matter.
The official said he was joking. But state police were called in to investigate and arrested Gendron, then 17, in custody on June 8 under the state’s mental health law, police officials said Sunday. Officials said he received a psychiatric evaluation in a hospital but was released within days. Two weeks later, Gendron graduated and fell out of sight of investigators.
On Saturday, he reappeared 200 miles away in Buffalo, where authorities say he opened fire on a supermarket in a predominantly Black area, kill 10 people and injured three other people in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent US history.
After going into a fit of rage, Gendron put the gun to his neck. But two officers convinced him to drop his weapons and surrender.
He was charged on Saturday with first-degree murder, and as he awaits his fate in prison, investigators sifted through his past to piece together how he transformed. from a quiet student to an accused murderer without further scrutiny.
“There is no information about State Police intelligence, nothing about FBI intelligence,” said Joseph A. Gramaglia, the Buffalo police commissioner, on Sunday. “No one called in, no one called any complaints.”
Steven Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI’s field office in Buffalo, said that neither state nor federal investigators had any information on Gendron before his senior year comments were included. sighting range.
New York State has a so-called red flag law whereby those found to be dangerous could be forced to surrender their guns, but no one attempted to use it against Mr. Gendron. State police said he did not threaten anyone or anything in particular.
But what happened after what an old classmate said was an increasingly strange pattern of behavior by Mr. Gendron. Two former classmates said he went to class in hazmat attire after pandemic restrictions were lifted in 2020.
“He was wearing a suit, boots, gloves, everything,” said 19-year-old Nathan Twitchell as he stood on the porch in Binghamton, shaking his head. “Everybody just stared at him.”
It was one of the few times students saw Gendron, said yellow-skinned Cass Williams, another student at the high school. Ms Williams, 19, said Mr Gendron enjoyed online classes even when his classmates were back in school.
“He was always very quiet and never said much,” said Mrs Williams, who added that Mr Gendron was intelligent but had become more reclusive over the years since she met him at school. elementary.
“We were shocked. We can’t even wrap our heads around it still,” she said.
FBI agents and other law enforcement officers gathered Sunday morning outside the Gendron family’s home in Conklin, a town of about 5,000 people.
There’s very little movement in the pale green two-story home with black shutters and neatly trimmed bushes, save for agents commuting in the driveway. The three neighbors stood side by side down the block, arms crossed. Some recall watching Gendron play basketball in the driveway with his two brothers, and some even attended his front yard graduation party last year.
Mr. Gendron’s mother did not respond to a message left on Sunday afternoon. Nor is the attorney representing Mr. Gendron under his arrangement, Brian Parker.
Ms. Williams said the last time she saw Mr. Gendron was during graduation. She said she was shocked when a friend texted her after Saturday’s shooting to tell her Mr Gendron had been arrested.
Mr Twitchell said: ‘He’s just a quiet, smart kid that I don’t think he’s ever going to be able to do anything like what he did yesterday. “It just blew my mind.”
Kolton Gardner, 18, who attended middle and high school with Mr Gendron, describes him as “certainly a bit of an outcast.”
Mr. Gardner said: “He is not that social. “I knew he had an interest in guns, but where we grew up it was not unusual. It’s just that in rural New York, people like guns. ”
Mr. Gendron’s passion for guns is beyond the ordinary. Law enforcement officials said he had been planning the attack for months and posted a 180-page manifesto online explaining why he carried out the shooting and describing his sanity. get his meticulous for it. In it, he wrote a lot about the pros and cons of handguns.
The document includes a question and answer section, data graphs showing an air of pseudoscience, and pages of racist and anti-Semitic memes – as well as his thoughts on crypto vs. fiat money and precious metals.
He writes about his admiration for former serial killers and says he takes special inspiration from the man responsible for a 2019 mosque massacre in London. Christchurch, New Zealand.
One of the many unanswered questions that have arisen from Gendron’s fury is why his harsh reaction to the post-graduation plans did not lead to further intervention beyond the mental health test. .
According to the red flag laws of the State of New York, issued in 2019, anyone who believes someone might pose a threat to themselves or others can ask a judge to issue a “high-risk protective order” that prevents that person from buying or possessing a firearm. The law is not used often.
The law enforcement official who was briefed on the school project said that in New York, there are hundreds of threats to schools each year and that in each case, authorities interview students. students and their parents to determine if students have actual access to firearms. The authorities then attempted to make a reasonable call.
In any case, Gendron was not on a red flag list when he entered Vintage Firearms in Endicott, NY, and purchased the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that police say he used in the shooting.
Shop owner Robert Donald confirmed that his records show he sold the gun to Mr Gendron, but said he had no recollection of the young man, although he said he only sold half a dozen. this gun for a year.
Donald, 75, who has owned the store since 1993 and mainly sells collectible guns, said he was shocked when federal investigators contacted him on Saturday to ask about Gendron, who Mr. Donald said he bought a gun in the past few months. .
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t understand how an 18-year-old would do this. I know I did nothing wrong, but I feel terrible about it.”
Mr. Donald said he did a background check on Mr. Gendron before selling him the gun. The report shows nothing. “He didn’t stand out, because if he did, I would never have sold him the gun,” Mr. Donald said.
Gendron wrote that he modified the gun with his father’s dynamic drill, using a spare set that retails for $60. Mr. Donald said that when he sold Gendron the gun was in compliance with New York law.
“Even with all those safety features – that’s the only way I sell it – any gun can be easily modified if you really want to do it,” he said.
Christine Chung, Luke Vander Ploeg and Mark Walker contribution report.
