Buffalo shooting suspect charged with murder as a hate crime, domestic terrorism
Washington PostSep 09, 2022
The Facts
Payton Gendron, the suspect accused of carrying out a racist mass shooting that killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket in a mostly Black neighborhood last month, will face 26 federal hate crime charges, according to a criminal complaint filed by US prosecutors Wednesday.
Prosecutors accused Gendron, who allegedly used an AR-15 style rifle, of carrying out the shooting "to prevent Black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race." Much of his alleged motive was spelled out in an online manifesto.
The Spin
Left narrative
The shooter saw himself as a soldier in a culture war that's been fostered by right-wing media and other figures on the Right that parrot claims related to "replacement theory." Now he's being rightly charged for his crimes.
Right narrative
Public evidence suggests the shooter was driven by "replacement theory" and his attack qualifies as a hate crime. But attempts to tie his blatant racism to conservatives' unrelated concerns about the Left's loose immigration policy is a shameless attempt to siphon voters away using hyperbole and false accusations.
