On Sunday, 10 people were killed, and three others were wounded in a mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket.
Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old White male from Conklin, New York, was arrested after he carried out the shooting at Tops Friendly Markets in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo.
According to the FBI, the shooting was described as a racially motivated hate crime.
Gendron, who wore a bulletproof vest and carried an assault-style rifle, live-streamed the massacre in real-time on Twitch, a live streaming service platform, before surrendering to police.
According to The Christian Post, among those killed in Saturday’s shooting were three professing Christians: 77-year-old Pearly Young, 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield and 67-year-old Heyward Patterson.
“For 25 years she ran a pantry where every Saturday she fed people in Central Park. Every. Saturday. She loved singing, dancing, & being with family,” Madison Carter, an anchor and investigator for 11 Alive, tweeted about Young.
“She was [a] mother, grandma, & missionary. Gone too soon.”
Pearly Young, 77, was killed today in #Buffalo shopping for groceries.
For 25 years she ran a pantry where every Saturday she fed people in Central Park. Every. Saturday.
She loved singing, dancing, & being with family.She was mother, grandma, & missionary. Gone too soon 🕊 pic.twitter.com/dQ5X9KBJCQ
— Madison Carter (@madisonlcarter) May 15, 2022
Retired Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell W. Whitfield, Ruth Whitfield’s son, said that his mom was “the consummate mom.”
“My mother was a mother to the motherless. She was a blessing to all of us. She loved God and taught us to do the same thing,” he said in a statement.
As reported by The Buffalo News, Patterson served as a deacon at The State Tabernacle Church of God.
“He was just an outgoing person,” Tirzah Patterson, Patterson’s ex-wife, said. “He was an all-around person, with a good heart, good spirit, very mild, and a sense of humor. He was the best deacon here; we had an excellent deacon. He’s going to be missed in this area and at home. He was a good man.”
According to the New York Post, Gendron had been planning the shooting since January. He chose the Tops supermarket in Buffalo because it “has the highest Black population percentage.” Officials say he traveled “several hours” to carry out the attack.
The man also posted a 180-page white supremacist manifesto on social media. In the manifesto, which authorities believe is authentic, Gendron said he was bored at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and became “radicalized” on the internet. He then conducted internet searches that led him to believe that there is a low white birth rate “crisis” worldwide that would “ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people.”
In the manifesto, Gendron referenced other racially motivated killings and said he “mostly” agreed with Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the gunman who live-streamed his attack at a New Zealand mosque in 2019. About 51 people were killed.
Gendron has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges. He is expected to appear in court next Thursday.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/John Normile/Stringer
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. He is also the co-hosts of the For Your Soul podcast, which seeks to equip the church with biblical truth and sound doctrine. Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.
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