10 dead in suspected 'hate crime' shooting
An 18-year-old gunman shot 10 people to death and wounded three others at a grocery story in Buffalo, New York, before he surrendered to police in what US authorities said would be investigated as a hate crime and an act of "racially motivated violent extremism". Authorities said the white suspect, who was armed with an assault-style rifle and appeared to have acted alone, came to Buffalo from a New York county "hours away" to target the store in a predominantly black community. Eleven of the 13 people struck by gunfire were black, and two were white, officials said. The Buffalo News newspaper reported a police source as saying that the shooter had a camera and was wearing body armor with a "military grade helmet." "Ten people were killed by a gunman dressed in body armor and armed with a high-powered rifle, while three others were wounded – two of them critically," reported the paper, citing a police official at the scene and another source close to law enforcement. The Buffalo Police department tweeted at 3.26 pm local time that officers were "on scene of a mass shooting at the Tops" grocery store, and that the "shooter is in custody." "Police say multiple people have been struck by gunfire," the tweet added. The police are investigating whether the shooter livestreamed the attack, the paper said, as has been alleged on social media. "It's like walking onto a horror movie, but everything is real. It is Armageddon-like," a police official told the paper. Buffalo is located in western New York, along the US border with Canada. "I'm actively monitoring the situation with the grocery store shooting in Buffalo. We are standing with the people of Buffalo," said the senior US senator from New York state, Chuck Schumer, in a tweet. The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, also tweeted that she was monitoring the situation, and asked people in Buffalo to "avoid the area and follow guidance from law enforcement and local officials." (Reuters/AFP)