Schumer headed to Buffalo in wake of mass shooting

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday that he will be heading to Buffalo with President Biden on Tuesday in the wake of a racist mass shooting in a predominantly Black neighborhood that left 10 people dead.

“Today, we hold in our hearts every single New Yorker whose life was tragically cut short during Saturday's violence. We weep knowing nothing, nothing will ever be able to bring them back. We mourn with their families and with their friends, with the entire community still shell shocked by this shooting,” he said on the floor.

“Tomorrow, I will join with President Biden, the first lady and others to travel to Buffalo in order to pay my respects to those who died as well as to visit the families and visit with local officials still investigating the attack,” he said. “We also, of course, thank our brave first responders who were at the scene moments after the shooting. Without them, more would have undoubtedly been killed.”

Schumer described the shooting as the “deadliest shooting in the history of Buffalo and the worst mass shooting in America this year.”

Ten people were fatally shot and three were wounded after a gunman opened fire at a Tops supermarket in east Buffalo on Saturday afternoon in an attack that local officials have said was motivated by racist hatred. 

Officials say the shooting suspect, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, pointed to the so-called great replacement theory in writings ahead of the shooting. The Anti-Defamation League defines the ideology as a racist conspiracy theory “about the impending destruction of the white race” that falsely purports the replacement of white Americans with non-white immigrants.

The suspect, who is white, has pleaded not guilty first-degree murder charges in the attack, in which eleven of the victims were Black.

According to CNN, officials are planning to bring more charges against Gendron, who reportedly livestreamed on Twitch during the shooting.