Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old gunman who killed ten African-Americans and injured three others in a supermarket shooting spree in Buffalo, New York, on May 14, pleaded not guilty to charges of domestic terrorism.
On Thursday, Gendron appeared in Erie County Court for an arraignment hearing, following which the judge ordered him jailed without release.
On July 7, he is expected to appear in court once more.
According to Xinhua news agency, a grand jury charged the gunman with domestic terrorism in the first degree, murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree as a hate crime, attempted murder in the second degree as a hate crime, and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree.
According to a law enforcement source, this is the first time a grand jury in New York state has ever indicted a person on the charge of a “domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate in the first degree.”
On May 19, Gendron was charged with a single count of first-degree murder.
According to Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s local office, the shooting is being investigated as both a hate crime and a case of racially motivated violent extremism.
On May 14, Gendron drove three hours from his house to a predominantly Black neighbourhood in Buffalo, where he carried out a mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue on the city’s East Side.
The victims were between the ages of 32 and 86.
The Buffalo incident occurred ten days before another 18-year-old massacred 19 children and two teachers at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 213 mass shootings in the United States in the first 21 weeks of 2022, including 27 school shootings and up to 10 mass shootings every week.
(Inputs from IANS)