Social media reveals suspected gunman spent months planning racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket

Social media posts by the 18-year-old White man suspected of shooting and killing 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday reveal he had been planning his attack for months, reported by CNN.

The 10 people killed on Saturday ranged in age from 32 to 86, police said, among them a former police officer who tried to stop the gunman and a number of people doing their regular grocery shopping.

Sadness and frustration were still palpable among many who came to the supermarket to pay respects and show their support.

Alleged gunman Payton S. Gendron of Conklin, New York, posted that he selected a particular ZIP code in Buffalo because it had the highest percentage of a Black population close enough to where he lived. Police and other officials have described the mass shooting as a hate crime.

In his posts, initially written on the chat app Discord and shared on online forum 4chan, the suspect said he visited the Tops Friendly Markets three times on March 8 to survey the layout, as well as at the times of the day when there were the most customers. He planned his attack for mid-March, the posts say, but delayed it several times.

Of the 13 people shot, authorities say, 11 were Black. The alleged gunman was taken into custody in the immediate aftermath and is under suicide watch after pleading not guilty to a first-degree murder charge, according to authorities.