we will bring all of the resources of the federal government to bear on this case. this is the number one priority of the department of justice and i can assure the citizens of this community that anything that we can do at the federal level with this case will be done and justice will be served for the victims. just on the hate crime issue as well, i ve already asked our hate crime task force, the new york state hate crime task force to be investigating as well. so it is being treated absolutely as a hate crime. and i ve been in touch with officials in washington and at the white house on the issue, what we re doing here so aggressively. so i appreciate the fbi s engagement as well. thank you, everyone. our coverage of the breaking news out of western new york continues this hour. police say an 18-year-old man dressed in tactical gear and protective armor opened fire at a grocery store in buffalo, just hours ago, killing ten people and wounding three others. police say
hours ago, killing ten people and wounding three others. police say most of the victims were african american and the gunman is white. the suspect, peyton gendron, just appeared in court and was arraigned on charges relating to the shooting. that will be the only time we name him tonight. athena jones is tracking the story. athena, we heard very passionate remarks there from new york governor kathy hochul who blasted social media for giving hate a platform. what else did we hear? reporter: hi, pamela, that s right, kathy hochul was a native of buffalo, she was born in buffalo. she started her remarks talking about how she knows this community and spent time in this community. she was angry by the events today, as anyone would be with this senseless killing. she said she s angry she s seeing guns causing mayhem in places like brooklyn when we saw
store and now ten of those people will not be coming home for dinner, as we heard the governor note. we also understand there were a total of 13 people shot, ten of them were killed. 11 of those 13 people are black. that is our understanding. so that is one of the reasons that authorities are saying that this is a hate crime. there is also other evidence that we don t know the full details of yet. so there s been mention of a purported manifesto posted online. it s unusual to see authorities say so quickly after something like this happens, this only occurred at about 2:30, and within a couple of hours there was law enforcement saying this is indeed a hate crime and is being investigated as such, something racially motivated. more from the folks we heard kathy hochul say, which i thought was interesting given recent news out of the supreme court, she said in addition to talking about guns and potentially gun legislation in
to be. i just keep thinking, anthony, about the fact that the apparent level of planning that went into this, the fact that the suspect had all this tactical gear on and a helmet and a camera attempted and then drove from broome, new york, according to the governor, 3 1/2 hours to pbuffalo. just the amount of hatred you have to have inside, the commitment to that hateful ideology, to follow through on something like this. i mean, that was 3 1/2 hours where the suspect could have turned around and said, you know what, this is crazy, you know, i can t do this. but the suspect followed through and now ten people don t have their lives. and their family members are crying right now, or maybe they re just finding out that they lost their loved one right now as we speak. i mean, to drive hours to go to an african american community to hunt, to gun down innocent
the shooting on the subway in brooklyn in recent weeks. and now here on the streets of buffalo. she mentioned spot. gun legislation package to be discussed in albany to address the issues of guns. interestingly, she told us a little more about the weapon that the suspect was carrying, saying that her understanding was that it was a legally obtained weapon that was modified in such a way that made it illegal, the modification was illegal and that it was modified with magazines available in opinion pennsylvania. there are looser rules there than in new york, where there are tougher rules. the governor called the suspect basically a terrorist and said called him a white supremacist who engaged in an act of terrorism and that he will be prosecuted as such,