NBC News reported Monday evening that chat logs show the gunman who killed ten people in Buffalo, New York this weekend at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood, pondered his other shooting location options.
Payton S. Gendron posted a 180-plus page manifesto in which he promoted the conspiracy theory that white people are being replaced as part of a plot by Democrats. Law enforcement revealed chat logs on Discord in which Gendron planned his various options for a mass shooting.
Hundreds of pages of chats are no longer available online or other forums, but it was observed that he documented his planning beginning in Dec. 2021. The chats ended last week when he posted selfies that match the mugshot of Gendron.
The first details he provided examined the percentage of Black people in the area. He identified Rochester, New York as a possible location but ultimately decided on Buffalo.
By Feb. 2022 he cited several churches as possible attack locations, the report explained. He then speculated about attacking an elementary school, but the security there was likely a deterrent. The grocery store he went after did have security, but the body armor he was wearing prevented shots from security from stopping him.
"On May 1, less than two weeks before the attack, the user claims in one post he might 'also' attack the elementary school, but is unclear how he would get in and out of the building," the report explained. "He claimed he had driven by the school during a prior stakeout of Tops."
Police told CNN on Saturday that he went to the store in the days leading up to the shooting. He'd done another tour of the store in March as part of his preparation.
The manifesto also promoted false theories used throughout the centuries to justify attacks on people of color, such as brain size and other factors.
Last Wednesday, he wrote that he would do the grocery store so that it would terrify people of all generations in the future.
The chat logs also show private posts of his weapons and other content.
"The author of the manifesto said that he was specifically radicalized on the 4chan forum, which is a largely unmoderated space that is frequently filled with racist and extremist rhetoric," the NBC report closed. "But Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said that oftentimes online extremists will use other platforms to spread their ideology."
He explained that while they might cite one site or another, they typically have multiple accounts on several sites to use in an effort to spread their ideology.
