Ten dead in US grocery store mass shooting

Revulsion over murderous rampage being livestreamed on Amazon site

Ten people were killed and three were wounded on Saturday when a heavily armed white man opened fire at a grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, in what authorities said was a racially motivated mass shooting. The suspect surrendered to police.

He was identified as Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, about 320 kilometers southeast of Buffalo, The Associated Press quoted two law enforcement officials who asked for anonymity as saying.

He was arraigned in a Buffalo court on one count of murder in the first degree, Erie County District Attorney's Office said.

Gendron appeared in the court for less than five minutes and pleaded not guilty, according to a report by United Press International.

The shooter was remanded without bail, and a felony hearing is scheduled for Thursday, Erie County District Attorney's office said.

Eleven of the victims of the shooting were black and two were white.

Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said the suspect, who was wearing tactical gear, used a camera to livestream the attack and shot several victims in a parking lot before entering the outlet of the regional grocery chain Tops Friendly Markets in a neighborhood a few kilometers north of downtown Buffalo.

Officials said the gunman broadcast the attack live on Twitch, a livestreaming site owned by Amazon that is popular with gamers. Twitch said it had taken the channel offline.

Among the victims who died was a retired Buffalo police officer who was working as a security guard and was engaged with the shooter after he entered Tops, officials said. He struck the suspect, who was wearing body armor, and the security guard was killed.

Stephen Blodgett, the special agent in charge of the FBI Buffalo field office, said the shooting was being investigated both as a hate crime and a "case of racially motivated violent extremism".

John Garcia, the Erie County sheriff, said that "this was a straight up racially motivated hate crime". Someone from "outside of our community came to inflict evil", he said.

Authorities said the gunman drove a vehicle to the front of the store and opened fire in the parking lot.

Braedyn Kephart and Shane Hill, both 20, said they pulled into the parking lot just as the gunman was exiting.

"He was standing there with the gun to his chin," Kephart said. "We were like, 'What the heck is going on? Why does this kid have a gun to his face?'"

Then the gunman dropped to his knees. "He ripped off his helmet, dropped his gun, and was tackled by the police," Kephart said.

In a statement issued late on Saturday US President Joe Biden decried the shooting as "abhorrent to the very fabric of this nation". "Hate must have no safe harbor. We must do everything in our power to end hate-fueled domestic terrorism."

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, whose hometown is Buffalo, said she was dismayed that the killer managed to livestream his attack on social media, which she blamed for hosting a "feeding frenzy" of "violent extremist ideology".

Xinhua and agencies contributed to this story.