Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said on Monday that additional police units have been deployed in the city after the Saturday shooting.
“You can’t police your way out of these feelings,” he told NBC News. “But we have increased police patrol, not only in this immediate neighborhood, but in other areas of the city.”
The mayor stressed that the mass shooting was a racially motivated crime that “really shakes your feelings of security and safety.”
Speaking about the investigation, he noted that the attacker, 18-year-old college student Payton Gendron, had intentionally targeted the African American community, driving almost 200 miles from Conklin, New York.
“So I can share about the investigation that the shooter came here — it was a premeditated act — wanted to kill as many Black people as possible,” Brown said. “If not for the heroic action of the security officer, retired Buffalo police officer, police lieutenant, he would’ve been more successful in that effort.”
According to the shooter's 180-page manifesto, posted online shortly before the attack, he chose the area because it has the largest percentage of Black citizens in the region of New York where he lived.
He also wrote that he had been preparing for an attack in Buffalo for several years, buying ammunition and practicing shooting. The manifesto, called “Great Replacement Theory,” followed the ideas of an ideology based on the belief that the white population is being replaced by immigrants.
According to the Associated Press, the killer live-streamed his attack on Twitch using a camera mounted on his helmet. At around 14:30 local time, the shooter arrived at the supermarket dressed in a military uniform, body armor, and equipped with an assault weapon.
He shot four people in the parking lot before he entered the store, where he ran into a security guard, who returned fire but was fatally shot. The attacker shot at customers and employees. The store manager, who managed to escape, told the Buffalo News that she heard about 70 shots in total.