Who is Brenton Tarrant? Payton Gendron was inspired by New Zealand mass shooter
BUFFALO, NEW YORK: Payton Gendron, the teenager accused of killing 10 people in the Buffalo supermarket massacre on Saturday, May 14, posted a white supremacist manifesto that outlined his plans and stated he "mostly agreed" with Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who live-streamed his own mass shooting at a New Zealand mosque in March 2019.
Gendron, 18, claimed in a 180-page document that he was "radicalized" on the internet during the early days of the Covid pandemic, and not by any people he had met personally. The self-professed white supremacist and anti-Semite said he had found through his "research" low white birth rates across the globe, and that the "crisis" would "ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people."
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Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that investigators believe the manifesto is authentic and matches the key personal details of the suspect. Gendron, in his diatribe, mentioned other racially motivated killings and said that he mostly agreed with Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who carried out the worst mass shooting in New Zealand on March 15, 2019.
Gendron said that he started planning the Saturday attack in January and specifically targeted the Tops Supermarket in Buffalo because "it has the highest black population percentage" by Zip code and is relatively close to his Southern Tier residence. In another section of the manifesto, the shooter details his step-by-step plans for the day, noting he would eat corned beef hash for breakfast, drive to Buffalo and scout the supermarket, how he would wear body armor and carry his gun, as well as how he would post a live stream of his activities on social media.
Just to show how sinister this white supremacist Payton Gendron was during this anti-Black terrorist attack in Buffalo…
— Tariq Nasheed 🇺🇸 (@tariqnasheed) May 15, 2022
in between targeting Black victims, he spared the life of a white man he almost shot, and apologized to him pic.twitter.com/D2jvnrz3W6
Officials said 11 of the 13 people shot at the supermarket were black, including a "hero" security guard and former Buffalo cop who were among those killed. Gendron wrote almost 100 pages about his guns, body armor, gear, and clothing choices. That said, the manifesto also includes photos of sketch comedian Sam Hyde holding a gun.
In an alleged 180-page manifesto, the Tops Markets shooter claimed his name was Payton Gendron and attended Broome CC.
— adam duke (@duke_university) May 14, 2022
However, photos in the document (below) are of sketch comedian Sam Hyde, and Broome CC public safety said they had no record of a Payton Gendron. @news4buffalo pic.twitter.com/fbgSGwVP1H
Who is Brenton Tarrant?
31-year-old Brenton Tarrant was sentenced to jail for life without parole after he killed 51 people and wounded 40 others at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, 2019. In the worst mass shooting in the country's history, Australian national Tarrant stormed two mosques in the area armed with military-style semi-automatic firearms and opened fire at Muslims gathered for Friday prayers. He live-streamed the massacre using a head-mounted camera.
The white supremacist was born in New South Wales, Australia, to a father who was a garbage collector and a mother who was a teacher. He quit his job following the death of his father in 2010 and went on to travel through parts of Asia and Europe. Speaking to 9News, Tarrant's grandmother said that she believed his travels changed him. "It's only since he traveled overseas, I think that boy has changed completely to the boy we knew," she said. According to the BBC, he moved to New Zealand in 2017 and started planning his attacks against the Muslim community. Tarrant was known to be active on fringe online forums and also shared a 74-page "manifesto" prior to his attack.