White supremacist killer Payton Gendron published his plans to kill 41 hours before his supermarket massacre – but internet giants failed to act.
Between releasing his murderous manifesto on Google and carrying out Saturday’s attack, which left 10 people dead, he visited the store in disguise.
On Friday, the teen entered the Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, dressed as a homeless man to carry out a “reconnaissance” mission, manager Shonnell Teague confirmed.
Locals have grown increasingly angered by the failings of the big tech companies, with one saying they have the “blood of our community” on their hands over their lack of action.
They also accused the firms of “doing little if anything” to prevent the spread of hate on their servers, which enabled Gendron, 18, to become indoctrinated in far-right hate.
The heavily-armed murderer drove 200 miles from his home in Conklin to Buffalo before live-streaming his attack on
black residents.
He’d published plans on Thursday in a twisted 180-page manifesto in which he called for whites to rise up and start a race war. The killer also called for London mayor Sadiq Khan to be murdered.
Gendron carried out his attack on Saturday at 2.30pm.
On page six of his manifesto, Gendron wrote: “I replaced the name of the city to redacted because I’d prefer that the FBI and local police don’t know until the attack has started. After the attack can somebody switch it over plz?”
But 53 pages later, he provides further details pinpointing his exact target.
Yesterday, anger mounted outside the supermarket as locals demanded to know how his plans were not picked up and reported to the police or the FBI.
Jerome Davey, 37, said the community “deserved answers from Google” as to why they allowed such a document to be published. The dad of five said: “For 40 hours, this killer’s plan was on a server for all to see, yet no one at the media giants picked up on it, let alone the police.
“Companies like Google have the blood of our community on
their hands.”
Following the killings, New York Governor Kathy Hochul criticised social media platforms.
She said: “I want to know what people knew and when they knew it. They’ve created the platform for this hate to be spewed.”
A preliminary probe found Gendron had visited websites espousing white supremacist ideologies.
Police were called in to question him after he threatened to shoot a fellow pupil at his high school graduation last year.
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