Behavioral precursors of Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron

Mass murderer and animal abuser
Gendron's pic, sourced from Facebook by DailyMail
Name	Payton S. Gendron
Age	18 (at time of incident)
Occupation	—
Known Identifiers	—
Status	Convicted domestic terrorist
Involvement	Perpetrated the 2022 Buffalo shooting, a racially motivated mass murder at a Tops Friendly Market. His pathway to violence was characterized by social isolation, a premeditated act of animal cruelty, and deep immersion in online white supremacist ideology.
Punitive Measure	Pled guilty to state charges, including domestic terrorism motivated by hate, and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking the death penalty on federal charges.

The 2022 Buffalo shooting was a racially motivated act of domestic terrorism that occurred on May 14, 2022, in which 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron murdered ten Black individuals and injured three others at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York. The attack was the culmination of a discernible developmental trajectory marked by profound social isolation, a brutal act of animal torture that served as a behavioral rehearsal, and a rapid radicalization into a virulent white supremacist ideology acquired in unmoderated online spaces.

Background and social isolation

Accounts from those who knew Payton Gendron paint a consistent picture of a deeply isolated young man who was quiet, socially awkward, and a loner. His behavior, such as attending school in a full hazmat suit after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, further alienated him from his peers. He was acutely aware of his social standing, confiding in a classmate that he was lonely and disliked school because he had no friends. His isolation was so severe that his mother once contacted another student's mother, asking if her son could call Payton because he was completely friendless and needed someone to talk to. This profound social alienation, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is considered a key vulnerability that made him susceptible to the extremist narratives he discovered online.

June 2021 threat and systemic failure

In June 2021, a critical event occurred that represented a major systemic failure. For a high school economics project, Gendron, then 17, made a threat of "murder-suicide," which triggered an official intervention by New York State Police. He was taken into custody and held for a day and a half for a psychiatric evaluation.

However, he was released without being criminally charged or involuntarily committed. Officials concluded that his threat was "generalized" and not directed at a specific person, meaning it did not meet the stringent legal threshold to invoke New York's "red flag" law, which could have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms. In his private diary, Gendron later described the incident as a "well-executed bluff," claiming he successfully convinced authorities it was a dark joke. He wrote that this successful deception was "the reason I am still able to purchase guns" and that the encounter gave him "encouragement to take action."

Animal cruelty incident

In his private diary on Discord, Gendron provided a detailed and dispassionate account of torturing and killing a feral cat, an act that served as a critical psychological and practical rehearsal for his subsequent massacre. He claimed the act, which occurred on March 25, 2022, was retaliation for the cat attacking his family's pet.

His description details a prolonged, 90-minute act of torture in which he chased, stabbed, and repeatedly smashed the cat's head into concrete before using a hatchet to decapitate it. He meticulously documented the event, noting the time blood first appeared, and later posted photos of the mutilated corpse online. His reflection on the act encapsulates a profound lack of empathy: "Honestly right now I don't feel anything about killing that cat... I thought I would be in pain but I literally just feel blank." This "up close and personal" act of cruelty is a key indicator identified by counter-terrorism experts as an accelerated risk for committing mass violence.

Online radicalization and planning

Gendron's radicalization process began in earnest during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020. He described a state of "boredom" that led him to explore the anonymous imageboard 4chan, where he was exposed to and adopted the "Great Replacement," a white supremacist conspiracy theory. He authored a 180-page manifesto and kept a detailed private diary on Discord, in which he laid out his racist ideology and meticulous plans for the assault. His manifesto was heavily plagiarized from that of Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch mosque shooter whom he idolized.

The attack

On the afternoon of May 14, 2022, Gendron drove approximately 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin to a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Dressed in tactical gear and armed with an illegally modified AR-15-style rifle, he shot thirteen people, killing ten. Eleven of the thirteen victims were Black. The entire massacre was livestreamed on Twitch via a helmet-mounted camera, though the platform shut the stream down in under two minutes. After the rampage, Gendron surrendered to police.

Legal outcome

Payton Gendron pleaded guilty in state court to charges including first-degree murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate. In February 2023, he was sentenced to multiple concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole. He also faces a 27-count federal indictment for hate crimes and firearms charges, for which the U.S. Department of Justice has announced it will seek the death penalty.