Online radicalisation led a white supremacist to target African-Americans

A conspiracy theory that was once on the fringe leads to another mass shooting

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden lay flowers at a memorial to the victims of the racist massacre in Buffalo, N.Y., on Tuesday morning, May 17, 2022. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)Credit: New York Times / Redux / eyevineFor further information please contact eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20 8709 8709e-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com

May 19th 2022|Buffalo

“He was a really great guy,” says Dayna Overton-Burns, of her friend Aaron Salter, who was shot dead at Tops, the supermarket on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo where he worked as a security guard. “You can talk with him about anything,” she recounted tearfully. Mr Salter, a retired policeman, tried to stop Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old gunman. But Salter’s gun was useless against the assailant’s bulletproof vest. Mr Gendron, who live-streamed the horror on Twitch, a gaming site, killed ten people and injured three more. Eleven of his victims were African-American. All “because of the colour of our skin”, says Ms Overton-Burns.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Sickening theory and lethal practice”