The perpetrator’s parents questioned after mass shooting in the United States

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Ten people were killed and three wounded when a man shot himself with a rifle in a supermarket in Buffalo.

Authorities are now investigating a manifesto that was posted online before the shooting, and which describes the episode in detail in advance. Police have identified an 18-year-old man as the perpetrator.

The manifesto contains references both to the shooting in a mosque in Christchurch in New Zealand in 2019 and to Anders Behring Breivik who was behind the attack on the government building and AUF’s summer camp on Utøya in 2011.

The preliminary investigation indicates that the 18-year-old investigated the two shootings thoroughly and has repeatedly visited websites with racist ideology and conspiracy theories. Authorities have already determined that the motive for the shooting was racial hatred. Eleven of the victims were black.

Flowed the shooting

The 18-year-old also streamed the shooting directly on the streaming service Twitch, which is owned by Amazon and is popular with gamers. Twitch states that they cut the broadcast already after two minutes.

It is not clear why the 18-year-old traveled over 300 kilometers from his home in Conklin, New York, to this particular supermarket. But investigators believe he had examined the demographics surrounding the supermarket, and that he was looking for neighborhoods with black populations.

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Confronted by the police

When the man was confronted by the police in the supermarket Tops Friendly Market, he put the gun to his head, but was persuaded to be arrested.

“We are investigating the incident both as hate crime and racistly motivated violent extremism,” Special Agent Stephen Belongia told the FBI in Buffalo at a press conference on Saturday.

Among those killed is security guard Aaron Salter, a former police officer, who opened fire and tried to stop the perpetrator. But the bullets were stopped by the 18-year-old’s bulletproof vest, and Salter was instead shot and killed himself.

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