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Buffalo attack: Defendant on authorities’ radar – had undergone psychiatric evaluation a year ago

New York State authorities are investigating how an 18-year-old man whom the governor said had been on the authorities’ radar since he was in high school was able to shoot and kill ten people at a Buffalo supermarket.

Peyton Jetron, who turned himself in to police, is being investigated for “violent extremist motives with a racist motive”. He accompanied his act by publishing a racist manifesto on the Internet.

His action follows a series of other racist deadly attacks in the US in recent years, including the attack on the Pittsburgh synagogue with 11 dead in October 2018 and the attack in Atlanta in March 2021 in which a white man killed eight people targeting Asians.

Jetron was arrested a year ago for a psychiatric evaluation and released a day later, according to Buffalo Police Chief Joseph Gramalia.

New York State police have confirmed that they were called to a high school in Conklin last June for the case of a 17-year-old student who had made a threatening statement. Without mentioning Jetron, the police clarified that the student underwent a psychiatric evaluation and was released without prosecution.

Authorities said Jendron was armed with an automatic weapon and drove several hours from his home to Buffalo to carry out the attack in real-time via Twitch, Amazon.com’s live video service platform.

Eleven of the 13 people hit by the bullets were black and two were white.

A 180-page manifesto circulating on the Internet yesterday believed to belong to Gentron focused on the “Theory of the Great Substitution”, according to which whites are being replaced by non-whites in the United States and other countries.

“This manifesto tells us everything and this is the creepy thing,” New York Governor Kathy Hossal told CNN.

Another document circulating on the Internet also appears to have been written by Jendron and is a list of tasks that had to be done in anticipation of the attack, such as cleaning the gun and testing for live streaming.

The New York governor told ABC News that Jetron was on the authorities’ “radar” because of his high school texts, adding that the investigation should determine how Jetron managed to get off the radar, as he was known to authorities and posed a threat.

“I want to know what the people knew and when they found out,” said Katie Hossal, expressing outrage that the perpetrator managed to broadcast the attack live on social media, which he accused of harboring violent extremist ideology.

“The fact that this can be posted on a platform is shocking. These media need to be more vigilant in monitoring content,” he said.

Twitch announced that it had downloaded the live broadcast less than two minutes after its launch and that it was working to ensure that the content would not be posted to other accounts. The governor of New York replied that he should have come down “in a second”.

Peyton Jetron, from Conklin, New York, was arraigned on charges of first-degree murder, which carries a sentence of up to life imprisonment without suspension. The judge ruled that the accused would remain in custody without the right to post bail and would undergo a forensic examination. Jentron pleaded not guilty.

The assault rifle was legally purchased, but illegally amplified with a powerful magazine.

Source: AMPE

Source: Capital

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