Buffalo shooter indicted on 27 counts of federal hate and firearms charges

Justice department is stepping up hate crime prosecutions as racially targeted attacks have surged across US

A federal grand jury has indicted the 19-year-old white man who allegedly killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store in May on more than two dozen counts of hate and firearms charges, the justice department announced on Thursday. The indictment comes just a day before the Tops grocery store, where the mass shooting took place, was set to reopen.

The indictment charges that Payton Gendron, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, violated the federal hate crime law by willfully causing the death of the victims because of their actual and perceived race and color". According to his manifesto, Gendron viewed Black people as replacers", a nod to the racist theory that global elites" are replacing white people with people of color. Police said he had driven 200 miles from his home to the city's east side because of the high concentration of Black residents in the zip code where Tops, the only grocery store in the area, is located.