“Can that change?” he added. “Sure.”
Authorities say Gendron traveled more than 200 miles from his home in Conklin, NY, in the state’s Southern Steps, to carry out the attack after carefully selecting Buffalo’s East Side neighborhood for it. there is a large black population.
In the months leading up to the shooting, Gendron had posted a series of racist comments online, including the plans for the Buffalo attack, photos of tactical equipment and assault-style weapons that he claimed. Officials say he used to carry out the shooting, and thought otherwise on the messaging site Discord.
Right before the attack, Mr. Gendron shared those posts with a small group; Gendron also briefly live-streamed the attack on Twitch, an Amazon-owned website popular with video players.
“There’s a lot of evidence here,” Flynn said.
He added that he would resist any attempt by the defense to move the trial out of Erie County. “This happened in our community,” he said.
Gendron surrendered to police after the shooting, and a few days later Governor Kathy Hochul announced a pair of executive orders directed the State Police to create a new unit to monitor “violent extremism through social media”, like the channels Mr. Gendron is said to have used.
Hochul has also supported a series of new measures to tighten the state’s already strict gun laws, including raising the age to own a semi-automatic rifle, like the one Gendron is said to have used. application, to 21. passed in Albany on Thursday by the State Legislature, which is controlled by the Democratic Party.
Mr. Gendron’s attack occurred just 10 days before a shooting in an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex21 people died, including 19 children. The gunman in that shooting, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, also used a semi-automatic rifle and died in the attack. And on Wednesday, there was another shooting in Tulsa, Okla., where A man kills four people at a medical centercarry a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun.
