Buffalo massacre suspect urged people to rethink attack plans -NYT

(Reuters) – The 18-year-old man charged in the deadly shooting in Buffalo, New York, invited people to a Discord chat room to learn about his plans about 30 minutes before carrying out the attack, reported the New York Times. Tuesday, citing a statement from the messaging app.

The FBI said Payton Gendron, who is white, committed an act of “racially motivated violent extremism” when he opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle Saturday at a grocery store in a predominantly African-American neighborhood. American of Buffalo.

Eleven of the 13 people hit by gunfire were black. Ten of the victims were killed in the rampage, part of which the shooter broadcast live on a social media platform.

In the months leading up to the attack, Gendron posted about his attack plans on a private Discord chat room that was visible only to him, the New York Times and other media outlets reported. The messages included hand-drawn maps of the Tops Friendly Market, where the attack took place, The New York Times reported.

“What we know at this time is that a private, invite-only server was created by the suspect to serve as a personal chat log,” Discord told the New York Times.

It adds: “About 30 minutes before the attack, however, a small group of people were invited and joined the server. Before that, our records indicate that no other people viewed the chat log on that server private.”

It is not clear who Gendron might have invited to the server. Discord did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub)