Radical Hate Manifesto: The Buffalo Supermarket Attack

WEBVTT

1
00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:30.239
I'm going to have to kill that
security guard. These chilling words, whether

2
00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:34.799
heard or read, are horrifying enough
on their own, but they become even

3
00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:40.000
more sickening when we realize that the
sinister intentions behind them were brought to life

4
00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:44.679
just a few short months later.
The man, or, in some ways

5
00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:49.840
more than others, the boy behind
those words was Peyton S. Gendron.

6
00:00:50.719 --> 00:00:54.640
Born on June twentieth, two thousand
and three, in New York, Peyton

7
00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:58.920
planned on following his parents and becoming
a civil engineer. To do that,

8
00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:03.920
he first went to Susquehanna Valley High
School, where classmates remembered him as being

9
00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:08.000
a little odd but a quiet student, someone who just kept to himself.

10
00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:14.280
But that was only until the summer
of twenty twenty one, when Peyton would

11
00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:19.680
say something that sent a shiver down
everyone's spines. A teacher asked him and

12
00:01:19.719 --> 00:01:23.719
his classmates what they planned to do
when the school year was up. Others

13
00:01:23.799 --> 00:01:30.120
mentioned traveling, summer vacations and universities. Peyton's answer was, I want to

14
00:01:30.239 --> 00:01:34.480
murder and commit suicide. His teacher
didn't skip a beat. This incident was

15
00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:40.040
immediately reported, and Peyton was referred
to a mental health hospital for evaluation,

16
00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:44.920
a quick and timely response from those
in charge, and one that couldn't come

17
00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:51.079
any sooner because Peyton actually already owned
multiple firearms. But only a day and

18
00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:56.359
a half later Peyton was released.
He told the doctors and the police who'd

19
00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:00.120
responded to the incident that it had
all been a joke and that he he

20
00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:04.920
only said that to get out of
class. The authorities believed him. They

21
00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:08.039
didn't file anything against him, they
didn't remove his weapons, and nothing serious

22
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:14.080
when on his records. Peyton then
enrolled in Sunny Broome Community College to study

23
00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:19.319
engineering science and seemed to move on
with his life, but online he revealed

24
00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:23.120
his true intentions. He confessed that
his plans to commit murder and then kill

25
00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:29.000
himself had been real and none of
it had been a joke. In what

26
00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:32.960
is now being called his Manifesto,
a one hundred eighty page document, outlines

27
00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:39.159
exactly how Peyton was feeling. He
cites several sources far rights and white supremacist

28
00:02:39.240 --> 00:02:44.520
authors and politics, and he says
that he believes that white people in America

29
00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:49.639
are being subjected to genocide. He
describes that he had not always felt this

30
00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:54.000
way. He claims to have actually
originally supported left leaning politics, but that

31
00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:59.199
he couldn't abide by them anymore.
It was four Chan, he claimed,

32
00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:04.360
that opened to racist memes that had
spread at the beginning of the pandemic,

33
00:03:04.599 --> 00:03:07.680
had shown him that there was an
active race war going on right under all

34
00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:12.960
of our noses, and at the
end of things, it wouldn't be white

35
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.719
people who'd come out on top.
If I could go back, maybe I'd

36
00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:20.719
tell myself to get the f off
of four Chan and get an actual life.

37
00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:24.360
He later wrote online in a moment
of self reflection, I would like

38
00:03:24.439 --> 00:03:29.080
to say I had a quite normal
childhood, but that is not the case.

39
00:03:29.639 --> 00:03:32.159
It's not that I actually dislike other
people. It's just that they make

40
00:03:32.199 --> 00:03:37.680
me feel so uncomfortable. I've probably
spent actual years of my life just being

41
00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:40.439
online, and to be honest,
I regret it. I don't go to

42
00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:45.520
friends houses often, or go to
any parties or whatever. Every day after

43
00:03:45.560 --> 00:03:49.879
school I would just go home and
play games and watch YouTube, mostly by

44
00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:54.000
myself. For any of you listening
and hoping that this self reflection meant that

45
00:03:54.080 --> 00:04:00.960
Peyton was doubting himself and his feelings
enough to change his plans. That tragically

46
00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:04.680
not what happened. His online activity
goes on to describe a trip to the

47
00:04:04.680 --> 00:04:10.000
emergency room in the spring of twenty
twenty one. This visit had been the

48
00:04:10.039 --> 00:04:14.159
result of Peyton's confession to his teacher, and he explains that he ended up

49
00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:17.279
having to spend twenty hours in the
hospital before he was released. His time

50
00:04:17.319 --> 00:04:21.399
there was supposed to draw him away
from any nefarious intentions he may have had,

51
00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:27.560
but instead, he wrote that it
pushed him towards actually acting on them.

52
00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:32.560
Peyton decided to make his ambitions a
reality. He began studying other famous

53
00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:39.279
attacks and staking out locations. He
purchased more weapons and more ammunition, and

54
00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:43.319
modified the ones that he already owned
so that they could hold more rounds.

55
00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:47.319
All of this was documented online,
either in his manifesto or in a private

56
00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:53.199
server on discord, where he kept
a daily log. In January twenty twenty

57
00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:57.240
two, he honed in on a
location he knew it would be somewhere in

58
00:04:57.279 --> 00:05:00.360
Buffalo, which was the closest city
to him that had the highest black population,

59
00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:05.079
and then he narrowed down the search
even further. He studied churches and

60
00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:10.399
shops, even a synagogue, to
see if he could target Jewish people instead,

61
00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:15.480
and then he found Top's Friendly Markets, the only supermarket in Buffalo's East

62
00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:19.399
Side neighborhood. He studied their opening
times and used Google to see when it

63
00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:25.319
was the busiest. Everything was hinged
towards doing as much damage as possible,

64
00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:30.959
all with the intent of terrorizing,
in Peyton's words, quote all non white,

65
00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:34.800
non Christian people and get them to
leave this country. Peyton did all

66
00:05:34.839 --> 00:05:39.600
the reconnaissance that he could do online
and then made plans to go down to

67
00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:44.040
Top's Friendly Markets in person. But
first he had some last minute modifications to

68
00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:47.319
do on his weapons. He covered
them in racial slurs and names of other

69
00:05:47.399 --> 00:05:53.199
extremists who had committed terrible acts of
violence and attacks. They were covered in

70
00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:58.480
slogans and references to the far right
ideology that Peyton was using to justify the

71
00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:00.800
actions he was about to take.
He was about as ready as he could

72
00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:04.000
be. The only thing he had
left to do was go and see Top's

73
00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:08.519
Friendly Market with his own eyes so
that he could get a good sense of

74
00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:13.040
the place. In March two thousand
twenty two, he drove hours from his

75
00:06:13.079 --> 00:06:16.399
home town of Conklin County, New
York, to Buffalo and made his way

76
00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:20.680
into the store. He didn't draw
any attention to himself at first, but

77
00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:25.879
when he began sketching out the layout
and making note of other people's races,

78
00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:30.399
he was approached by the security guard. In hindsight, it was a close

79
00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:34.319
call, Peyton later wrote. He
managed to swindle his way past the security

80
00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:39.959
guard by claiming that he was collecting
census data and left before any one could

81
00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:44.160
question him further. I'm going to
have to kill that security guard. I

82
00:06:44.199 --> 00:06:48.000
hope he doesn't kill me, Peyton
shared in his logs. Peyton wouldn't see

83
00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:54.160
Tops again until May two thousand twenty
two. The then nineteen year old arrived

84
00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:59.120
on May thirteenth and positioned himself outside. He looked like a beggar, and

85
00:06:59.199 --> 00:07:02.399
many people mistook him for one.
The manager at the store actually asked Peyton

86
00:07:02.439 --> 00:07:08.800
to leave, probably more than grateful
anything else that Peyton did so without arguing,

87
00:07:09.439 --> 00:07:13.240
but he would be back the very
next day. About a half an

88
00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:17.319
hour before he arrived, Peyton sent
out several invitations to join that private server

89
00:07:17.399 --> 00:07:20.639
on discord, where he had been
keeping a daily log of all of his

90
00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:27.639
preparations. He also uploaded his manifesto
onto Google Docs and got in his car.

91
00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:31.959
He was wearing camouflage clothing and several
layers of protection, including a military

92
00:07:31.959 --> 00:07:36.160
helmet. Once he'd reached the parking
lot of the Top's Friendly Market, he

93
00:07:36.279 --> 00:07:42.639
live streamed his actions on Twitch.
Only two minutes into the stream and Twitch

94
00:07:42.879 --> 00:07:46.079
shut him down. Just got to
go for it, He's heard saying before

95
00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:51.680
the feed cut out, and then
he opened fire. Around two thirty Peyton

96
00:07:51.759 --> 00:07:57.199
shot and killed four people in the
parking lot before entering the store. Many

97
00:07:57.240 --> 00:08:01.040
heard the shots outside, but Peyton
moved quickly and didn't leave much time for

98
00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.000
people to get to safety. Some
staff and members of the public managed to

99
00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:09.079
make it into the break room and
barricade the door. Some made it into

100
00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:13.160
the milk fridges, only to find
Peyton shooting at them. They were some

101
00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:16.399
of the lucky ones, as the
milk cartons actually ended up blocking the bullets.

102
00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.519
It was then that Peyton's own words
would turn into a chilling case of

103
00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:26.439
foreshadowing. Former Buffalo Police Department officer
and now armed security at Top's Friendly Market,

104
00:08:26.680 --> 00:08:31.399
Aaron Salter Junior, approached Peyton and
tried to end this heinous attack.

105
00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:37.000
Aaron shot at Peyton and hit him
in the head. The military helmet that

106
00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:41.639
Peyton was wearing actually helped save his
life. Peyton then turned on Aaron and

107
00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:46.399
opened fire, killing him almost instantly. Just like Peyden said he would have

108
00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:50.080
to do, he killed the security
guard. First responders were still on their

109
00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:54.879
way, and Peydon was now free
to roam the store. He made his

110
00:08:54.919 --> 00:08:58.879
way through the aisles, picking off
victims until he whipped around and pointed his

111
00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:03.919
gun at someone hiding behind the checkout
counter. He then apologized and moved on,

112
00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:09.519
leaving the victim alive and physically unarmed
because they were white. About six

113
00:09:09.559 --> 00:09:15.080
minutes after the attack started, law
enforcement had Peyden pinned outside the store.

114
00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:18.519
Peyton's plan had been to continue his
attack, but it looked like he would

115
00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:24.000
be moving on to phase two sooner
than expected. He pointed a gun at

116
00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:28.639
his own neck and prepared to commit
suicide. It seemed Peyden would get exactly

117
00:09:28.679 --> 00:09:33.080
what he wanted all along, but
officers at the scene managed to talk Peyden

118
00:09:33.159 --> 00:09:35.879
out of taking his own life.
He dropped his weapon and removed some of

119
00:09:35.919 --> 00:09:41.039
his body armor before surrendering himself to
the police. A peaceful end to a

120
00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:46.240
tragic event that had just left ten
innocent people dead. The courts, and

121
00:09:46.279 --> 00:09:50.000
the jury then threw the book at
him. Peyton was found guilty of one

122
00:09:50.039 --> 00:09:54.320
count of domestic terrorism, ten counts
of first degree murder as a hate crime,

123
00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:58.879
ten counts of second degree murder,
and three counts of attempted second degree

124
00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:03.759
murder. He was sentenced to eleven
life sentences without the possibility of parole,

125
00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:09.759
with an additional ninety years, but
he still had more court cases to come.

126
00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:13.159
Given the magnitude of his crimes,
it was possible that the prosecutions desired

127
00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:18.720
for the death penalty would be fulfilled
before the day was done. It was

128
00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:22.039
only that the state of New York
changed its legislature on the death penalty that

129
00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:39.440
spared Peyton from sharing the same fate
as many of his victims. That's ten

130
00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:43.919
minute murder for today Brief and bingeable
True Crime. I'm Joe, I'm the

131
00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:48.799
host, and thank you for taking
the time to listen to the podcast today.

132
00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:52.159
If you're a new listener, welcome
in. Make sure you hit subscribe

133
00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:54.080
wherever you're listening, and that will
more easily help you catch up on all

134
00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:58.519
the back episodes and see the new
ones when they're available. For everything related

135
00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:03.279
to the podcast, you can go
to ten minute Murder dot com and I

136
00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:05.200
need to give you a heads up. Like always, I plan to post

137
00:11:05.559 --> 00:11:11.480
photos on social media as it relates
to this case. Now, you know

138
00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:16.639
that I never post graphic and gory
content on social media because first of all,

139
00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:18.200
I don't like seeing it, and
I just assume that you don't either,

140
00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:22.799
so I don't post that. However, some of these photos, the

141
00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:28.120
non graphic photos, like the weapon
I describe. He's got slurs written on

142
00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:31.120
his guns. These pictures when I
post them may or may not be taken

143
00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:35.320
down. I don't know, So
you can go to Facebook and Instagram and

144
00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:39.519
see if they're there. I'm going
to post them anyway, just because I

145
00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:43.639
think it's important that you see all
of the details of this case with your

146
00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:48.120
own eyes. So I'm going to
post them now. Whether they are there

147
00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.120
at the time when you go to
look for them, I don't know.

148
00:11:50.840 --> 00:11:54.080
Rarely do I have a post that
gets flagged or taken down, but I

149
00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:58.399
have a feeling this one might be
one of them. So go check it

150
00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:01.159
out on Facebook. You can search
ten minute Murder and on Instagram as well.

151
00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:05.639
And that's going to do it.
That's your episode for today. Thank

152
00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:07.120
you. So much for listening to
ten minute murder