A New York grand jury has charged the 18-year-old white man with killing 10 people during a live-streamed shooting at a supermarket in an African-American neighborhood of Buffalo, prosecutors say.
Buffalo City Court Judge Craig Hannah adjourned the hearing after a few minutes and allowed the defendant, Payton Gendron, to reappear on June 9.
He remains in custody without bail.
Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said the grand jury had not yet completed an investigation into whether prosecutors had enough evidence to bring Gendron to trial on more charges.
The defendant is currently charged with a single count of first-degree murder in shooting 13 people in a Tops Friendly Markets store on Saturday afternoon.
Gendron faces life without parole if convicted of murder.
Flynn said in a statement that he would have no further comment on the case until the grand jury is done.
It was Gendron’s second appearance outside the supermarket since his arrest when authorities said he opened fire with a semi-automatic assault rifle.
He was led to the courtroom, dressed in orange prison robes and wearing a white medical mask.
His hands were cuffed, and his head was slightly bowed.
As relatives of some of the victims watched, someone in the courtroom yelled, “Hey, you’re a coward!”
The frenzy, which authorities say was carefully planned to kill as many African-Americans as possible, has struck a chord in a country that has become accustomed to mass shootings.
With the gunman livestreaming the attack and taking inspiration from racist utterances by previous killers found online, it has revived a debate about guns, domestic terrorism, hatred, and the internet’s role in spreading them.
In the days since Saturday’s shooting, more details have emerged about what happened at the store.
A 911 emergency center has been placed on administrative leave after officials determined that her handling of a call from an employee at the store during the shooting was “completely unacceptable,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the grocery store, told Buffalo TV station WGRZ that she called 911 and began whispering to the dispatcher.
The dispatcher replied in a “very annoying tone”, telling her she couldn’t hear her.
“My phone fell out of my hand from nervousness, she said something I couldn’t understand, and then the phone hung up,” Rogers said.
The FBI said it investigated the shooting as a hate crime and an act of “racially motivated violent extremism”.
Authorities have pointed to a white supremacist rant he allegedly put online before the shooting.
On Wednesday, New York State Attorney General Letitia James opened an investigation into several social media platforms.
Governor Kathy Hochul announced additional measures to curb domestic terrorism, including legislation to tighten New York’s gun laws and a directive for state police to exercise their authority to disarm individuals deemed a public threat under the red law. State flag law.