The gunman opened fire at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Street. According to local media reports, a witness said the supermarket was overcrowded at the time of the incident. Payton Gendron, a young man who goes by the online name “jimboboiii”, stopped at the supermarket and immediately shot four people in the parking lot, killing three of them. Gendron then entered the supermarket and shot multiple people, including a retired local police officer who worked as a security guard at the supermarket.
Gendron is from the town of Conklin, 200 miles southeast of Buffalo. According to a local police release, Gendron was wearing heavy armor and had “tactical armor, a tactical helmet, and a camera for live broadcast” at the time of the incident. Although the shooting process has been shared on the killer’s Twitch channel, the platform deleted the channel as soon as it received the news.
Time-related videos were quickly taken down by the platform, but still video screenshots and clips circulated on the Internet. Although Jimboboiii’s Twitch channel was taken down, there is a YouTube channel that hasn’t been updated for at least three years that may be related to him, and he also has a Steam account.
The intent of the incident was detailed in the killer’s manifesto. The killer claimed that the 4chan forum was the source of his radical behavior, expressing his hatred of the black and Jewish community. The manifesto also detailed his upcoming shooting plans, complete with diagrams. In addition, screenshots of him discussing the shooting plan in a private Discord channel have also been leaked on social media.
A Twitch spokesperson said in an email that it deeply regrets the incident and reiterated its “zero tolerance” approach to violence.
A Twitch spokesperson said: “We are devastated by the Buffalo shooting this afternoon. Our sympathies go out to the citizens deeply affected by this tragedy. Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy towards violence of any kind, and conducts all kinds of incidents. Quick response. Identified users will be banned and appropriate actions will be taken, including monitoring any accounts that redistribute this content.”
The killer also said he had intentionally posted the proposal to the more controversial 8chan forum, where the 4chan post was supposed to contain a link to the original 8chan post. According to The New York Times, Discord said it was investigating Gendron’s content on private servers before the shooting and was cooperating with local law enforcement.
“Our sympathies go out to the victims and their families and will do everything in our power to assist law enforcement in their investigations,” Discord said.
In the past, Discord has been transparent about extremism on the platform. The Transparency Report for the second half of 2020 showed that Discord removed 1,500 private servers linked to “violent extremism”, “a 93% increase from the number in the first half”. Such data reflects on another level that this platform is deeply loved by far-right forces, and the number of related servers has exploded, making it another breeding ground for violence on the Internet.
Police said the killer was suspected of a racial hate crime, but Payton Gendron was charged with first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty.
