A gunman who killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, planned further attacks after the mass shooting on Saturday, police have said.
The suspect, 18, drove more than 320km (200 miles) to carry out what is believed to be a racially-motivated crime.
He planned to keep driving and “shoot more black people,” Buffalo’s police chief told US media.
A pensioner, a former policeman and a grandmother were among the victims.
Mayor Byron Brown said the suspect arrived in Buffalo intending to take “as many black lives as possible”.
A 180-page document seemingly authored by the alleged attacker Payton Gendron has emerged, in which he describes himself as a fascist and a white supremacist.
Questions are being asked about how he was able to carry out the shooting when concerns had already been raised. “I want to know what people knew and when they knew it,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul told ABC News.
FBI officials have confirmed that the gunman spent a day and a half in hospital undergoing a mental health evaluation last year after he wrote that he wanted to commit a murder/suicide in a high school project.
No criminal charges resulted from the incident, and Buffalo police chief Joseph Gramaglia told reporters the gunman had only made “generalised threats”.
He does not appear to have remained under watch by authorities.
Mr Gramaglia told US media that there was evidence to suggest he wanted to targeted a second store on Saturday if he had not been stopped.
Meanwhile, the gun store owner who sold the semi-automatic used in the attack told several US outlets that no alert came up when he ran the suspect’s name through a government background check system.
New York’s Attorney General Letitia James said her office would focus on extremist material online.
“This event was committed by a sick, demented individual who was fuelled [by a] daily diet of hate,” she said.
The shooting has stunned the local community. One of those attending a vigil on Sunday told Reuters: “It just hurts, why somebody would do that.”
Ten died and three others were injured.
Of the 13 people shot, 11 were black. Among those reported killed were a man buying cupcakes for his son’s birthday and a woman who had gone shopping after visiting her husband at a nursing home.
Source-BBC
