Buffalo shooting: Seven of 10 dead identified in horrific mall massacre

Seven of the 10 people slaughtered by a white supremacist at a US mall have been identified.

Twisted teenager Payton Gendron scrawled the N-word on his gun yesterday before committing a massacre at the Tops Friendly store in Buffalo, New York.

The vicious rampage was uploaded to live-streaming platform Twitch, where a horrific video showed Gendron mowing down his tragic victims.

And in the hours after the attack, a hideous 180-page manifesto was released online detailing his absurd motive behind the shooting – in which 11 of the 13 shots were black.

Buffalo police officers took the 18-year-old racist conspiracy theorist into custody yesterday as the identities of his tragic victims emerged.

Among them was 32-year-old Roberta Drury, who had rushed to the nearby supermarket to get groceries for her dinner.

Her heartbroken sister Amanda, 34, shared the story New York Times : “She was very lively.

“She was always the center of attention and made the whole room smile and laugh.”

Shortly after the massacre, a retired police officer working as a security guard was revealed to be another of Gendron’s victims.

Aaron Salter Jr., identified by his son, confronted the rampaging gunman shortly after gunning down four people and killing three in the parking lot.

The “beloved” security guard and father of three fired multiple shots at Gendron, but they ricocheted off his armor.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia paid tribute to the ex-cop yesterday, describing him as a “hero in our eyes.”

“One of the people in the store is a security guard, a beloved security guard, a retired Buffalo police officer, a hero in our eyes,” he said.

Police Benevolent Association President John Evans added: “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him, a great bloke, well respected and popular.

“It’s just awful.

“I don’t know what other words I could use to describe it.”

Beloved mother Ruth Whitfield, 86, was gunned down after stopping by the store for some food on her way home from visiting her husband at a care home.

Ms. Whitfield’s son Garnell, who was a former Buffalo fire commissioner, told the Buffalo News : “My mother was a motherless mother. She was a blessing to us all.”

Mother and grandma Pearl Young, 77, were also shot dead during the killing spree.

Buffalo journalist Madison Carter confirmed the victim’s identity as she revealed how Ms Young spent 25 years feeding those in need in the Central Park neighborhood.

Carter wrote on Twitter: “She loved to sing, dance and be with family.

“She was [a] Mother, grandmother and missionary. Gone too soon.”

Katherine Massey – described as a “beautiful soul” – was also murdered while shopping at Tops store, her sister Barbara told the Buffalo News.

Her sister Barbara, 64, said she wanted to see suspected Buffalo supermarket gunman Payton Gendron jailed for 80 years — with a black cellmate.

She told that Daily Mail : “I only saw his face for the first time today when it popped up on my phone.

“First I wanted to kill him, choke him, then bring him back and choke him again. But that’s not me.

“I’ve been thinking about it all night and I want him to be in there for 70, 80 years. I want him to wake up every day with a black person or a Jewish person next to him and deal with it.

“These are your neighbors for the rest of your damn life. You have to sit here, boy.

“I just hope they don’t give him anything to hang himself with. He shot my sister in the face, I can’t get over it.”

Katherine described her sister as the “cutest little thing”.

Barbara added: “She was very intelligent, she wrote letters, she volunteered at City Hall.

“She went to Family Dollar and bought something for everyone.

“She was the glue. She was everything to us. If you did something for Kat, she would never forget it.

“If I knew my sister, she would have said to this guy, ‘Come on baby, put down the gun. That’s why I think he shot my sister. We can’t even have an open coffin because he shot her in the head.”

Single mother Celestine Chaney, 65, who battled and survived breast cancer, was also torn from her family by the gunman.

Her son Wayne Jones, 48, said she went to the store with her sister to get strawberries so they could bake a cake.

Mr Jones added: “It’s kind of crazy that she went shopping there because we go shopping together.”

His aunt escaped with her life after she ran away and hid in a freezer New York Times reports.

“But my mother can’t walk like she used to,” he said. “She basically can’t run”.

Heyward Patterson, who often drove people to the supermarket and helped them carry their groceries, was also fatally shot in the massacre, a relative told the New York Times.

Mr Patterson’s great-niece (no age), Teniqua Clark, said he would drive to the supermarket every day and give people a lift for less than they would pay in a taxi or ride-sharing service.

“That’s what he did for a living,” she said.

Witness Jennifer Tooke said she was walking through the supermarket when she heard the shots.

“I ran through the deli and ran out the back door to get away from him,” she said.

“When I came out of here, all I saw were bodies lying in front of the store.”

She walked back to the parking lot where she saw several bodies lying on the ground in front of the store.

Jennifer reached for her phone from her car and called her cousin, who was also in the store when gunshots erupted.

She said her cousin hid in a freezer to escape what police believed was around 70 bullets fired.

“It was scary,” she said. “Many people escaped, thank God.”

Yesterday, some of those gathered in the store began a series of chants.

These included “This Is What Community Looks Like” and “We Mourn, We Are Hurt”.

“A lot of people know each other in this community,” said local resident Michael Ray, a regular at Tops.

“We are all intertwined. Honestly, that’s what makes it so hurtful.”

Another family told The Sun their grandfather was among those killed but has not yet been named – adding that they tragically learned of his death from screenshots of the video posted online.

“It’s impersonal and cold to find out like this,” said the family member, who asked to remain anonymous because the victim has not yet been named.

A small child was with the grandfather at the time, the family member claims.

They added: “It’s disheartening to know that a small family member was at the scene without knowing if they got home safe. We panicked for hours.”

At a news conference this afternoon, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia confirmed that the evidence uncovered so far indicates the massacre is an “absolute racist hate crime” and will be prosecuted as such.

Eleven of the victims who were shot were black and two were white, officials said.

Gendron’s sick document focused on the idea of ​​an absurd plan to replace the white population with immigrants while referring to Sadiq Khan and Britain.

His far-right conspiracy, known as the “grand replacement theory,” has inspired many acts of violence recently, including Tarrant’s March 2019 attack, in which he warned of “white genocide” before pleading guilty to 51 murders and 40 attempted murders and involvement in an act of terrorism.

Some of the state’s hate-filled, torch-wielding “Unite the Right” protesters, including Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis who terrorized Charlottesville in 2017, were also motivated by the theory.

It warns that an increase in the non-white population, fueled by immigration, will destroy white and western civilization.

On page 165 of his manifesto, under the headline “High-profile enemies kill,” the twisted teenager listed the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, as one of three men he wanted dead.

He wrote: “Sadiq Khan, the current Mayor of London at the time of writing, is an open sign of the disenfranchisement and ethnicity of the British people in the British Isles.

“This Pakistani Muslim invader now sits representing the people of London, Londinium, the heart of the British Isles.

“What better sign of white rebirth than the elimination of this invader?”