The White House announced that President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, will visit Buffalo on Tuesday “to grieve with the community that lost 10 lives in a senseless and horrific mass shooting.” On Sunday night, the police identified the victims - a cross-section of a working-class neighborhood where the Tops store acted as both a crucial source of groceries and a community hub. “This individual came here with the express purpose of taking as many Black lives as he could,” said Mayor Byron Brown, a Democrat who is Buffalo’s first Black mayor. Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times Gendron, who the police said wore body armor and camouflage during his spree, is believed to have posted a lengthy screed riddled with racist writings and expressing admiration for a white supremacist ideology known as replacement theory, as well as for gunmen in other racist mass shootings.Ī vigil on Sunday commemorated the victims of the attack. Gendron was “not on the radar” of federal authorities. That account was confirmed by Special Agent Steven Belongia of the F.B.I., who said that Mr. And after the evaluation, which lasted about a day and a half, he was released, according to Joseph Gramaglia, the Buffalo police commissioner. Gendron described the remark as a joke, the official said. Gendron said his involved a murder-suicide, a law enforcement official familiar with the case said.īut Mr. Responding to a question for a class project about his post-graduation plans, Mr. Gendron had been picked up at his high school last June by state police after making a threatening remark and had been taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. Gendron picked his target carefully, the police said, choosing an area known for its large Black population and even visiting the neighborhood the day before the attack in what authorities described as “reconnaissance.”Īnd nearly a year before the mass shooting, his words had already caused alarm elsewhere.