Buffalo shooter’s family say suspect snapped because of his paranoia and isolation during pandemic

Family members of the Buffalo shooting suspect say they believe the pandemic and its enforced isolation took its toll on the shooter’s mental health which ultimately led to last weekend’s horrific actions.

Payton Gendron, 18, is accused of murdering 10 people in a ‘racist hate crime’ after firing a barrage of 50 shots at the supermarket in upstate New York. 

Gendron, of Conklin, New York, has since pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. He is now being held without bail and faces life in prison. 

Relatives say they think the teen snapped after his sense of paranoia increased coupled with the sheer isolation of the pandemic.  

‘I have no idea how he could have gotten caught up in this. I blame it on COVID,’ said a cousin of Gendron’s mother, Sandra Komoroff, 68, said to the New York Post.

‘He was very paranoid about getting COVID, extremely paranoid, to the point that — his friends were saying — he would wear the hazmat suit [to school],’ she said.

‘And then he got COVID just a few weeks ago. … He went to family functions with a respirator mask on. He totally wasn’t going to get COVID — and then he got COVID.

Komoroff said the family were ‘were vaxxed to the max.’

‘I don’t know if it was a bad case, I just know he caught it.,’ she added noting that the teen ‘bought into the fear of COVID.’

‘That’s the only way to say it. When you’re home all day on the Internet, you’re missing out on human contact. There’s a lot of emotions and a lot of body language you’re not getting as when you see their face,’ Komoroff explained to the Post.

Husband, 68-year-old Dave Komoroff, also suggested that Gendron may have developed ‘lizard brain’ which controls aggression.

‘I can’t say it’s impossible, but maybe that would happen one out of so many millions of times.’

Police said they are investigating a 180-page manifesto that Gendron reportedly posted before going on his rampage, which included a plan to drive several counties away to carry out the shooting.

Gendron identified himself as a white supremacist in the document, explaining his fears that white people are being replaced by other races. 

A preliminary investigation found Gendron repeatedly visited websites espousing white supremacist ideologies and race-based conspiracy theories – and extensively researched the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the man who killed dozens at a summer camp in Norway in 2011, an official said.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Gendron had traveled about 200 miles to Buffalo and targeted this particular grocery store, but investigators believe Gendron had specifically researched the demographics of the population around the grocer and had been searching for communities with a high number of black residents. 

Police said Gendron, wearing military gear and livestreaming with a helmet camera, shot a total of 11 black people and two white people in Saturday’s rampage before surrendering to authorities. Screenshots purporting to be from the Twitch broadcast appear to show a racial epithet scrawled on the rifle used in the attack, as well as the number 14, a likely reference to a white supremacist slogan.

Officials said the rifle Gendron used in the attack was purchased legally but the magazines he used for ammunition were not allowed to be sold in New York.

The Komoroff cousins have denied knowing about Gendron’s alleged racist leanings, but did say that the teenager was ‘very smart’.

‘I don’t know where he went online — the dark Web, or wherever — but apparently he got into some nasty stuff. He’s smart enough to get into dangerous stuff online, which maybe the average person wouldn’t know how to get into. I mean, I’m trying to figure it out myself,’ Dave Komoroff said. 

It was also revealed  that Gendron was not on law enforcement’s radar – despite having underwent a mental health evaluation last summer after he threatened to open fire at his high school.

Police were called to Gendron’s high school in Conklin, New York, located near the Pennsylvania border, on June 8, 2021 after he made a threatening statement, authorities revealed during a press conference Sunday. 

‘The state police responded. They investigated. They interviewed the subject. And they felt at the time it was appropriate to have that individual brought in for a mental health evaluation,’ Gramaglia explained.

Gramaglia said the threat was not racist and not directed at a specific person or place. 

However, an unnamed law enforcement source said Gendron, then-17, had threatened to shoot up Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna High School around graduation. 

Gendron was released after spending a day-and-a-half in the hospital. Gramaglia said that after his discharge, Gendron had no further contact with law enforcement.

‘Nobody called in,’ the police commissioner said. ‘Nobody called any complaints.’

The entire episode, Dave Komoroff says, raises concerning questions. 

‘The parents are well-to-do. Did they put him in some kind of therapy? Because when they get the civil lawsuit, that’s what’s going to come out. Someone’s gonna ask, “What did you do last year after this incident?” They’ll ask the parents, “What did you do? What did you do to help this kid?”

‘The parents are both college-educated. They’re intelligent. They’re engineers. They’re not hill people. “Did you think he needed any help?”‘

‘I would think that this family checks all the boxes,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to figure out the dysfunction, and I just can’t. We were at his graduation. He’s an 18-year-old kid. I said, “Congratulations.” He said, “Thank you.” I said, “What do you intend to do?” He said, “Be an engineer like my mom and dad.”

‘I just don’t see how this happened, but apparently this has been germinating for a long time.’

‘There should have been lightbulbs going off,’ Sandra Komoroff said to the Post. 

‘This kid should have been in some kind of empathy training that teaches these are human beings.’

But the couple also insist that the teenager and his family were for intents and purposes ‘normal’. 

‘It is a good family, a very good family. It’s unconscionable to me what happened. They’re very average people, God-fearing,’ Sandra explained.

‘I don’t understand the racist thing, because my family is the farthest thing from racist. I’ve never heard a racist comment from him, from his parents. It’s almost like he just snapped. Something in him broke. The whole family is in shock.’

Another couple who know the Grendon’s have told how they were completely surprised that their son was the shooter.  

‘When I first heard that this happened … I actually had a different picture in my mind of who the family was — some family living in a trailer park some place in the outskirts, the family with their AR-15s,’ said Cathy and Jerry Kozlowsk.

‘You try your best as a parent. Something went wrong,’ Jerry, 74, said. ‘Parents miss stuff. You try as a parent the best you can. I’m sure they did. I’m grasping what happened to this young man. Why? What possesses you to go out and buy a device that is going to do that to people?’

Wife, Cathy, also shared her concerns over the family’s future. 

‘Pam and Paul and the boys — I can’t imagine what that family is going through right now.

‘For Paul to face going back to work, for Pam to face going back to work, for the boys to face going to school, it’s not going to happen, at least right away. Maybe they’ll have to move somewhere else, because they’re going to get nothing but hate.’

Following the shooting, the entire city of Buffalo was left in a state of shock – but those who knew Gendron said there were a host of warning signs that the teen was falling into extremism and hateful beliefs.

Officials at the Susquehanna Valley High School brought in New York State Police to investigate Gendron in June of 2021 after he made statements that he would shoot fellow students.

A year later he ended up shooting 13 people – 10 of them fatally – during an attack motivated by his hatred for black people at a Top Market supermarket in Buffalo. 

‘A school official reported that this very troubled young man had made statements indicating that he wanted to do a shooting, either at a graduation ceremony, or sometime after,’ a government source told the Buffalo News.

After police looked into the account, Gendron was referred for mental health evaluation and counseling.

Classmates said that he often acted strangely at times and espoused extremist views on politics.

Last year, one former student recalled, Gendron wore a hazmat suit to school for a week. She believed it had something to do with protecting himself from the coronavirus, but she didn’t rule out the fact that he was making a joke.

‘It was the most extra thing that I ever saw him do,’ a former classmate who asked not to be named said.

There were other indications of Gendron’s fragile mental state.

During a class exercise in political class in which the students created their own countries with the government of their choice, Gendron’s pick was an autocratic regime that the classmate described as ‘Hitler-esque.’

‘His views were extreme,’ the student said. ‘You could pick any form of government that you wanted and he picked a totalitarian government.’

The classmate recalled that he almost collided with her head on in his car, but she brushed it off at the time to careless driving.

‘He was definitely into video games – shooter games,’ she said.

‘It’s so mind-blowing to think that it could have been us,’ she said. ‘I know he had his manifesto, but what if he decided to do a test run on us.’ 

For the most part he was quiet, but she said he would ‘smile weirdly’ when he spoke to people. She said she didn’t remember him ever having a girlfriend.

Gendron is one of four boys born to Paul and Pamela Gendron, two civil engineers with the state who live in Conklin, NY, three and half hours south of Buffalo. Paul coached his kids in the town soccer league and at least one neighbor found him ‘strange.’ His mother appeared conceited, locals said.

‘He’s from this pristine family,’ a schoolmate said. ‘They have everything together, they were just perfect.’

In photos posted by his mother on Facebook, Payton Gendron appears to tower over his father and others.

‘He was 6’1’ or 6’2” his schoolmate said. ‘He was a big guy.’

The family appears to be a tight-knit suburban family that played Laser Tag together, when to Autumn festivals, the beach and dined together in restaurants. 

Some neighbors said they were ‘odd’. 

‘To be honest, the mother was kind of snooty,’ a local parent who asked not to be named said. ‘Like she was better than everyone else. The father was strange. Like when you meet someone and they just seem off.’

A neighbor recalled him bringing home a human-sized Brontosaurus that he build for a school project. School records show that he was a good student and made high honors in his senior year, scoring higher than 92 percent in all his classes.

Facebook photos show that Gendron went on a few college tours and spent some time enrolled in Broome County Community College. 

A college spokeswoman told he Buffalo News that he was no longer enrolled.

‘They have a really nice family,’ neighbor Nancy Santucci said. ‘They seem like regular people. In a million years I never would think that anyone from this neighborhood would drive to Buffalo to carry out a racially motivated shooting.’

‘I’m just shocked,’ she said.

On Monday, harrowing radio calls made by Buffalo police officers and firefighters revealed the chaos the emergency crews found at the scene of the Tops Friendly Markets on Saturday afternoon.

Police were first alerted to the scene of the supermarket at around 2.31pm, when a dispatcher first directed a couple of officers to respond to a ‘shots fired’ call, according to audio recordings obtained by DailyMail.com.

Just about one minute later, the first cops and firefighters on the scene reported seeing bodies strewn outside the supermarket, and soon one officer on the scene makes a plea to the dispatcher, saying: ‘Radio, send as many cars as you possibly can’ as sirens could be heard going off in the distance.

Soon, a dispatcher informs the officers about a ‘possible active shooter’ at Tops, saying there are ‘still shots being fired.’

Less than 30 seconds later, firefighters on the scene radioed in that there were ‘at least three people on the ground,’ and the suspect ‘might be wearing body armor.’

Moments later, police reported that they had the suspect ‘cornered’ and ‘have him in custody.’ That call came just about six minutes after police were first dispatched to the scene.

Still, officials to clear out the supermarket, as they continued to find more victims of the apparently racially-motivated shooting. 

By around 2:35pm officials began calling it a ‘mass casualty incident,’ with cops on the scene asking for more cars to control the crowds that had gathered outside as they were ‘working on clearing the store.’

They announced at the time that there were at least three people shot, at least two of whom were shot directly in the head.

More victims were soon found dead inside the building, as one police officer could be heard exclaiming: ‘We have bodies down here.’

Police then called for more Crime Scene Unit officers to collect numerous bodies, bullets and magazines, and asked for further assistance in clearing the surrounding area of family members who had gathered outside worried about their loved ones.

In the final call of the audio recording, about 20 minutes after police were first dispatched to the scene, another police officer reveals that employees at the shop had locked themselves in a room near customer service to keep themselves safe during the rampage.

All ten of of the victims have been named by family members by Sunday, including security guard Aaron Salter – a retired Buffalo police officer – who fired multiple shots at Gendron. A bullet hit the gunman’s armor, but had no effect. Gendron then killed Salter, before hunting more victims.

President Joe Biden on Monday paid tribute to the fallen security guard as he honored 15 public safety officers, including two officers who died in the line of duty, during a ceremony in the East Room.

‘He gave his life when a gunman shot and killed 10 innocent people in a grocery store in Buffalo on Saturday. He was actually able to shoot the assailant twice but he had on a bulletproof vest. He lost his life in the process,’ Biden said at the Medal of Valor event at the White House.

The Medal of Valor is awarded to public safety officers who have exhibited exceptional courage, regardless of personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect others from harm. 

‘No one understands more than all of you here today the pain and anguish all the families in Buffalo feel,’ Biden said. 

‘You are part of a special community because fire fighters and police officers will always be there for you,’ he said. ‘I want to say a special thanks to you all for being here because I know it’s hard.’

Several of the other victims of Saturday’s brutal shooting were just everyday residents doing their shopping, including Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old grandmother, who is also the mother of former Buffalo fire commissioner Garnell Whitfield, was killed while shopping for groceries.

She had just visited her husband in a nursing home and decided to stop at the Tops on her way home to get something to eat, WGRZ reported.

Geraldine Talley, 62, had also stopped by the grocery store to pick up food for dinner, People reports and had asked her fiancée to go to another aisle to retrieve something off one of the shelves when the gunfire started.

The two were soon separated, and Talley died in the gunfire.

She is a mother of two children – Genicia Talley, 42, and Mark Talley, 32, and was also like a second mother to her niece, Kesha Chapman.

Talley is now remembered for her mouth-watering cheesecake, People reports.

‘She was truly an amazing woman, and I’m going to miss her dearly,’ Chapman-Johnson said told ABC News. 

Katherine Massey, 72, was also at the supermarket on Saturday to do her grocery shopping when she was fatally shot. Her brother was supposed to pick her up after she finished her errands.

Massey was a civil rights and education advocate. Former Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant, who had known Massey for over 20 years, told The Buffalo News that she ‘did everything she could to lift up Buffalo’s black community.’

Last year, Massey wrote a letter calling for more federal regulation of firearms, citing both urban street violence and mass shootings.

Pearly Young, 77, who fed needy residents in Buffalo’s Central Park neighborhood for 25 years, was another victim who was shot and killed during the massacre, 11Alive reporter Madison Carter tweeted.

Young, originally of Alabama, moved to New York as a young adult and married a pastor.

She had gone to lunch with her sister-in-law on Saturday and was dropped off at the grocer afterwards. Her son was expected to pick her up, but when he arrived at the store, the scene was in total chaos.

Her relatives told Alabama.com Young will be remembered for her love for God and her family.

Celestine Chaney, 65, who was at the supermarket to buy strawberries for shortcake, was killed during the shooting, her son, Wayne Jones, 48, confirmed. 

She was also picking up some shrimp her husband, Raymond. 

The loving mother and grandmother-of-six was at the supermarket with her older sister, JoAnn Daniels. 

Daniels told The Buffalo Times she never saw Gendron, but heard the sounds of his assault rifle.

She and Chaney were trying to flee when the 65-year-old was shot.

‘She fell and I thought she had got up and was behind me, but she wasn’t behind me,’ Daniels recalled. 

Roberta Drury, 32, was at the store to buy groceries for dinner when she was fatally shot, her sister Amanda Drury, 34, said.

She had moved to Buffalo from the Syracuse, New York, area to be with her older brother after his bone marrow transplant, her sister, Amanda Drury, told Reuters. 

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Drury helped him with his bar, The Dalmatia, and with his family.

‘She was vibrant and outgoing, could talk to anyone,’ Amanda said.

Andre Mackniel, 53, who also went by Andre Elliot, was in town visiting relatives.

He was at the store on Saturday to pick up a surprise birthday cake for his grandson, USA Today reports. 

But ‘he never came out with the cake,’ his cousin Clarissa Alston-McCutcheon said, describing her cousin as a ‘loving and caring guy’ who ‘loved family’ and ‘was always there for his family.

Heyward Patterson, who would often give people rides to and from the supermarket and help them carry their groceries, was also among the 10 people fatally shot, according to Patterson’s great niece Teniqua Clark.

He earned the nickname ‘Jitney’ because of his help at the grocer.

He was also a church deacon and would welcome parishioners and escort them to their seats.

‘He would give the shirt off his back,’ his wife, Tirzah Patterson, told The Buffalo News. ‘That’s who he is. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. Whatever he had, he’d give it to you.’

And Margus Morrison, 52, was a father of three who was an active bus aide for Buffalo schools since February 2019, USA Today reports.

His family later confirmed he was killed in the deadly shooting. 

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to travel to Buffalo on Tuesday. 

Buffalo officials now say the rampage could have been much worse had Gendron not been stopped by cops, and planned to drive to a second store to target black people. 

‘His plans were to drive out of here and continue driving down Jefferson Avenue looking to shoot more black people and possibly go to another store location,’ Buffalo Police Chief Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News.

The teen, who claims to identify as a white supremacist, issued several ‘clear and hate-filled’ statements about his motive and state of mind following his arrest, and admitted that he was targeting the black community when he carried out the massacre, an official confirmed to CNN.

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn revealed Sunday night that officials are also considering charging Gendron with domestic terrorism. 

‘We’re looking at potentially multiple additional charges to be filed,’ Flynn told Fox News. ‘We are looking at domestic terrorism charges, we are looking at hate crime charges, there’s actually a charge in New York State called domestic terrorism motivated by hate. So, that charge right there encompasses the actual terrorism and the hate charge together, all in one charge.’

The alleged killer, who is due back in court on Thursday, is currently on suicide watch after he ‘put the gun under his chin’ as though to shoot himself following Saturday’s attack. Officers managed to ‘talk him down’ and arrest him. Gendron is being held in a separate unit from other inmates.

‘He’s on direct observation from our deputies [with] video surveillance,’ Erie County Sheriff John Garcia explained. ‘He will be treated as everyone else is treated within the Erie County holding center — humanely, with respect. And he will receive the correctional help and the mental help that is needed.’

Police believe Gendron planned the attack for months before driving three hours to Buffalo to carry out the vile ambush that authorities are calling an act of ‘violent extremism’ motivated by race. 

Shonnell Teague, manager of Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, claims suspected gunman Payton Gendron visited the store on Friday while disguised as a homeless person.

‘He was acting like he was homeless and needed change,’ Teague told The New York Daily News on Sunday. ‘He really was checking out the store.’

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia confirmed the allegations, noting Gendron, 18, who lives nearly 200 miles away from Buffalo made multiple stops in the area the day before the massacre.

‘He was in the Buffalo area, he was right in this area the day before,’ Gramaglia said at a news conference Sunday. ‘We have identified some of the locations that he was at. We know he did some reconnaissance on the area and the store.’

Investigators, while executing a search warrant at his home on Sunday, also found evidence that the teen had been ‘studying’ previous hate crimes and shootings before he carried out his own attack.

‘The evidence that we have uncovered so far makes no mistake that this is an absolute racist hate crime. It will be prosecuted as a hate crime,’ Gramaglia said. ‘This is someone who has hate in their heart, soul and mind.’ 

New York Governor Kathy Hochul told ABC News on Sunday that an investigation would focus on what could have been done to stop Gendron, since he had advertised his views online and had been on authorities’ radar.

‘I want to know what people knew, and when they knew it,’ she said, adding the probe would be ‘calling upon our law enforcement as well as our social media platforms.’

Investigators are reportedly working to assemble a timeline of Gendron’s activities before the attack. Despite confirming that he surveyed the store on Friday, Commissioner Gramaglia has declined to detail the gunman’s interactions ahead of the attack, which was first called into 911 around 2.30pm.

Gramaglia did confirm that in addition to the AR-15 that Gendron fired during attack, officials discovered a rifle and shotgun in his vehicle. Those weapons were not used in the massacre.

He also revealed that law enforcement personnel searched the accused gunman’s Conklin home on Sunday, as well as a shed on the property. Pictures taken at the scene show FBI agents collecting and photographing evidence from the property. 

Federal agents also interviewed Gendron’s parents, Paul and Pamela, who are said to be cooperating with investigators.

‘The state police and FBI are at his house,’ Gramaglia told The New York Daily News. ‘They’ve spoken with the parents. From what I’ve been told, they’re absolutely distraught, devastated, cooperating.’

Gov. Hochul said Sunday she was dismayed that the suspect managed to live-stream his attack on social media, which she blamed for hosting a ‘feeding frenzy’ of violent extremist ideology.

‘The CEOs of those companies need to be held accountable and assure all of us that they’re taking every step humanly possible to be able to monitor this information,’ she told ABC News. ‘How these depraved ideas are fermenting on social media, it’s spreading like a virus now. 

Hochul also slammed Twitch for allowing a ‘military-style execution’ and ‘the massacre of innocent people’ to be ‘viewed by other people.’

‘There’s not enough monitoring because clearly this information was out there. Don’t they have a responsibility? I know it’s a huge, vast undertaking, but these companies have a lot of money. They have resources. They have technology. Key words show up, they need to be identified, someone needs to watch this, and to shut it down the second it appears,’ she said. 

‘And short of that, we will protect the right to free speech, but there is a limit. There is a limit to what you can do and hate crime is not – hate speech is not protected.’

Social media and streaming platforms like Twitch, which said it removed the stream after less than two minutes, have grappled with controlling violent and extremist content for years.

‘The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content,’ a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.

Robert Donald, the owner of Vintage Firearms in Endicott, N.Y., told The New York Times on Sunday that he recently sold a Bushmaster assault weapon to the man accused of the massacre.

Donald, 75, who primarily sells collectible firearms, said the teen bought the gun without leaving an impression and was shocked when he got a call from investigators regarding Gendron.

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