Buffalo Shooting

Over the year 2022, there have been many tragic shootings in the United States that have  strongly affected the society. Racism has been a  problem for centuries and now we are starting to see how racism and shootings are somehow connected. On May 14, 2022, there was a racially motivated shooting in Buffalo, New York, at the Tops Friendly Supermarket Store. The gunman was an 18-year-old man named Payton S. Gendron, and he believed in the “replacement theory.” The replacement theory is a white supremacist ideology which argues that white people are going to be replaced by people of color. Payton had an anti-Black racial slur on the barrel of his weapon, and he  had  “passively prepared” for this shooting for several years by purchasing guns, ammunition, and gear. . He planned this attack very far ahead and had each and everything planned meticulously to the minute. He had carefully studied the layout of the grocery store and had noted that he would shoot the security guard before going through the aisles to shoot black people. It is utterly shocking how single-minded he was to harming people of color. Then came the day of the shooting – on May 14, he drove over 200 miles to the Tops Friendly Supermarket  and live-streamed the shooting on Twitch, a live-streaming site that is primarily used for video games. The massacre began at  approximately 2:30 pm as Payton Gendron walked into the supermarket dressed in tactical gear and body armor carrying an assault weapon. He shot four people in the parking lot, and three of them died on spot. When he entered the store, he continued shooting and killed the security guard. , He ended up shooting thirteen people, of which ten died. Among the people shot, eleven people were black. It was a straight up racially motivated shooting that was planned for some time, and it tragically went the way Gendron had hoped for it to go. After this massacre, which is one of the deadliest racist massacres in American history, it went to court to decide Gendron’s fate. The Criminal Complaint charged Gendron with ten counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death, three counts of committing a hate crime involving an attempt to kill, ten counts of using a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence, and three counts of using and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. He was sentenced for life and is now in prison. Overall, this was a tragic incident motivated by hate, which is a serious issue affecting our society deeply and it is imperative that we take steps to solve it.