Buffalo Mass Shooter Charged With 26 Federal Counts

One month ago this week, 10 people lost their lives while shopping inside of a Tops Markets grocery store in Buffalo's Kingsley Neighborhorhood in a racially motivated attack. The alleged shooter, an 18-year-old from Broome County, New York, has just been charged with Federal Murder and Hate Crimes charges.

In a criminal complaint that was filed in Federal Couty, the shooter was charged with a total of 26 counts:

• 10 (ten) counts of a hate crime resulting in death,
• 3 (three) counts involving bodily injury and attempt to kill,
• 10 (ten) counts of using a firearm to commit murder and in retaliation to a crime of violence,
• 3 (three) counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in retaliation to a crime of violence.

The Justice Department is investigating this matter as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism. The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims.
-Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General

Attorney General Garland, along with other Federal officials, met with the families who were impacted by the shooting at the Appollo Media Center on Jefferson Avenue while these charges were being filed in Federal Court.

These charges are also in addition to the 25 counts he was charged with by a New York State Grand Jury that was convened by Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn.

If the shooter is convicted on all of the Federal charges, he faces the death penalty.

(The Shooter's) motive for the mass shooting was to prevent Black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race, and to inspire others to commit similar attacks
-Federal Criminal Complaint Filed with the Western District of New York Federal Court

Get our free mobile app

This act of domestic terrorism that occurred on the afternoon of Saturday, May 14, 2022, has left the residents of Buffalo to put the pieces back together. However, Buffalo is a strong community and has already proven that it can survive.