Radical Hate Manifesto: The Buffalo Supermarket Attack

“I’m going to have to kill that security guard…” These chilling words, whether heard or read, are horrifying enough on their own. But they become even more sickening when we realize that the sinister intentions behind them were brought to life just a few short months later.

The man, or in some ways more than others, the boy behind those words was Payton S Gendron. Born on June 20, 2003, in New York, Payton planned on following his parents and becoming a civil engineer.

To do that, he first went to Susquehanna Valley High School, where classmates remembered him as being a little bit odd but a quiet student. Someone who just kept to himself. 

But that was only until the summer of 2021, when Payton would say something that sent a shiver down everyone’s spines.

A teacher asked him and his classmates what they planned to do when the school year was up. Others mentioned traveling, summer vacations and universities. Payton’s answer was: “I want to murder and commit suicide.”

His teacher didn’t skip a beat. This incident was immediately reported and Payton was referred to a mental health hospital for evaluation. A quick and timely response from those in charge, and one that couldn’t have come any sooner because Payton actually already owned multiple firearms.

But only a day and a half later and Payton was released.

He told the doctors and the police who’d responded to the incident that it had all been a joke and that he had only said that to get out of class. The authorities believed him. They didn’t file anything against him. They didn’t remove his weapons and nothing serious went into his records.

Payton then enrolled in SUNY Broome Community College to study engineering science and seemed to move on with his life, but online he revealed his true intentions. He confessed that his plans to commit murder and then kill himself had been real and none of it had been a joke.

In what is now being called his manifesto, a 180-page document outlines exactly how Payton was feeling. He cites several sources, far-right and white supremacist authors and politics and he says that he believes that white people in America are being subjected to genocide.

He describes that he hadn’t always felt this way. He claims to have actually originally supported left-leaning politics, but that he couldn’t abide by them anymore.

It was 4chan, he claimed, that had opened his eyes. Racist memes that had spread at the beginning of the pandemic had shown him that there was an active race-war going on right under all of our noses and, at the end of things, it wouldn’t be white people who’d come out on top.

“If I could go back maybe I’d tell myself to get the f*ck off of 4chan… and get an actual life,” he later wrote online in a moment of self-reflection.  “I would like to say I had quite a normal childhood (<18) but that is not the case… It’s not that I actually dislike other people, it’s just that they make me feel so uncomfortable I’ve probably spent actual years of my life just being online. And to be honest I regret it. I didn’t go to friend’s houses often or go to any parties or whatever. Every day after school I would just go home and play games and watch YouTube, mostly by myself.”

For any of you listening to that and hoping that this self-reflection meant that Payton was doubting himself and his feelings enough to change his plans, that’s, tragically, not what happened.

His online activity goes on to describe a trip to the emergency room in the spring of 2021. This visit had been the result of Payton’s confession to his teacher, and he explains that he ended up having to spend 20 hours in the hospital before he was released. His time there was supposed to draw him away from any nefarious intentions he may have had, but instead he wrote that it pushed him towards actually acting on them.

Payton decided to make his ambitions a reality. He began studying other famous attacks and staking out locations. He purchased more weapons and ammunition and modified the ones that he already owned so that they could hold more rounds. 

All of this was documented online, either in his manifesto or in a private server on discord, where he kept a daily log.

In January 2022, he honed in on a location. He knew it would be somewhere in Buffalo, which was the closest city to him that had the highest black population, and then he narrowed down the search even further. He studied churches and shops, even a synagogue to see if he could target Jewish people instead, and then he found Tops Friendly Markets; the only supermarket in Buffalo’s East Side neighborhood.

He studied their opening times and used Google’s services to see when it was the busiest. Everything was hinged towards doing as much damage as possible, all with the intent of terrorizing, in Payton’s own words, “all nonwhite, non-Christian people and get them to leave the country.”

Payton did all the reconnaissance that he could online and then made plans to go down to Tops Friendly Markets in person, but first he had some last minute modifications to do on his weapons. He covered them in racial slurs and names of other extremists who had committed terrible acts of violence and attacks. They were covered in slogans and references to the far-right ideology that Payton was using to justify the actions he was about to take.

Payton was about as ready as he could be. The only thing he had left to do was go and see Tops Friendly Market with his own eyes so that he could get a sense of the place. In March 2022, he drove hours from his hometown of Conklin County, New York to Buffalo and made his way into the store. He didn’t draw any attention to himself at first, but when he began sketching out the layout and making note of other people’s races, he was approached by the security guard.

“In hindsight it was a close call,” Payton later wrote.

He managed to swindle his way past the security guard by claiming that he was collecting census data and left before anyone could question him further.

“I’m going to have to kill that security guard… I hope he doesn’t kill me,” Payton shared in his logs.

Payton wouldn’t see Tops again until May 2022. The then nineteen-year-old arrived on May thirteenth and positioned himself outside. He looked like a beggar, and many people mistook him for one. A manager at the store actually asked Payton to leave, probably more grateful than anything else that Payton did so without arguing.

But he would be back the very next day.

About half an hour before he arrived, Payton sent out several invitations to join that private server on Discord where he had been keeping a daily log of all of his preparations. He also uploaded his manifesto onto Google Docs and got into his car. He was wearing camouflage clothing and several layers of protection, including a military helmet.

Once he’d reached the parking lot of Tops Friendly Market, he live-streamed his actions on Twitch. Only two minutes into the stream and Twitch would shut him down.

“Just got to go for it,” he’s heard saying before the feed would cut out, and then he opened fire.

Around 2 :30, Payton shot and killed four people in the parking lot before entering the store. Many had heard the shots outside, but Payton moved quickly and didn’t leave much time for people to get to safety. Some staff members and members of the public managed to make it to the break room and barricade the door. Some made it into the milk fridges, only to find Payton shooting at them. They were some of the lucky ones, as the milk cartons actually ended up blocking the bullets.

It was then that Payton’s own words would turn into a chilling case of foreshadowing. Former Buffalo Police Department Officer and now armed security at Tops Friendly Market, Aaron Salter Jr, approached Payton and tried to end this heinous attack. 

Aaron shot at Payton and hit him in the head. The military helmet that Payton was wearing actually stopped the bullet and saved him. Payton then turned on Aaron and opened fire, killing him almost instantly.

Just like Payton had said he would have to do, he’d killed the security guard. First responders were still on their way and Payton was now free to roam the store. He made his way through the isles, picking off victims until he whipped around and pointed his gun at someone hiding behind the checkout counter.

He then apologized and moved on, leaving the victim alive and physically unharmed because they were white.

About six minutes after the attack had started, law enforcement had Payton pinned outside the store. Payton’s plan had been to continue his attack, but it looked like he would be moving onto phase two sooner than expected. He pointed the gun at his neck and prepared to commit suicide.

It looked like Payton would get exactly what he’d wanted all along.

But officers at the scene managed to talk Payton out of taking his own life. He ended up dropping his weapon and removing some of his body armor before surrendering himself to the police.

A peaceful end to a tragic event that had just left ten innocent people dead.

The courts and the jury then threw the book at him. Payton was found guilty of one count of domestic terrorism, ten counts of first-degree murder as a hate crime, ten counts of second-degree murder and three counts of attempted second degree murder. He was sentenced to eleven life sentences without the possibility of parole with an additional ninety years, but he still had more court cases to come. Given the magnitude of his crimes, it was possible that the prosecution’s desire for the death penalty would be fulfilled before the day was done.

It was only that the state of New York changed its legislature on the death penalty that spared Payton from sharing the same fate as many of his victims.