Azov Insignia-bearing Teen Carries Out,
Streams Mass Shooting in US

 

Al Mayadeen / Al Jazeerah

(May 15, 2022) — 18-year-old Payton Gendron has been detained without bail on first-degree murder charges following a mass shooting carried out on Saturday afternoon at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The spree has claimed the lives of at least 10 people, the latest Buffalo Police Department tally revealed.

The heavily armed gunman had a rifle and tactical gear on his person at the time of the incident, which the Buffalo police commissioner said saw 13 people shot, 10 of whom died at the scene before the police apprehended the assailant.

The shooting, local media said, started in the parking lot and took into the supermarket itself shortly thereafter.

The attacker drove more than 320 km (200 miles) from his home to the site, wearing military-style gear and clothing, namely a bulletproof vest, a tactical helmet, and camo fatigues.

The spree, labeled a hate crime by the FBI and the police, continued until the shooter was apprehended by the Buffalo police. Upon arrival, police officers confronted the gunman, and he reportedly put the rifle to his neck before eventually being persuaded to drop the weapon and surrender.

The hate crime label comes due to the fact that 11 out of 13 of Grendon’s victims were black and varied between shoppers and employees, and the crime in its entirety was live-streamed on Twitch.

Gendron, after he was taken into custody, was taken into court for an arraignment. His court-appointed lawyer pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges on his behalf, the Buffalo Police Station reported.

He was remanded without bail and is due back in court on Thursday for the continuation of the procedure.

Several graphic screenshots taken from the Twitch stream showed a body lying on the floor and a woman getting shot in the head.

The FBI is investigating the incident as both “a hate crime and a case of racially-motivated violent extremism,” Special Agent Stephen Belongia said.

Nazism Has a Play

A groundbreaking fact about the shooting is that it was carried out by a neo-Nazi white supremacist, who had published a fascist manifesto using the “black sun” Nazi symbol. The insignia is used by the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov battalion.

Pictures were circulated of the militant wearing the “black sun” on his chest in photos taken prior to the mass shooting.

Another fact is that the neo-Nazi-linked teen carried out his attack in a predominantly black neighborhood, reflecting his ideology’s racism by shooting 11 black people.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called the attacker a “white supremacist who just perpetrated a hate crime on an innocent community,” expressing “sincere hope that this individual… will spend the rest of his days behind bars.”

US President Joe Biden commented on the incident, saying, “Any act of domestic terrorism, including an act perpetrated in the name of a repugnant white nationalist ideology, is antithetical to everything we stand for in America”, though he continuously voices support for the Kiev regime, which backs the nationalist, neo-Nazi Azov battalion, notorious for its white supremacy.

The attack came in light of soaring gun violence in the United States and loose gun laws that permit just about anyone to possess a firearm.

Over the past five-year period, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) could only trace 0.98% of suspected “ghost guns” handed in by law enforcement to an individual purchaser, the department added.

According to the organization Gun Violence Archive (GVA), more than 15,070 people have died from gun violence since the beginning of the year in the United States, including suicides.

Over the whole of 2020, the number was at 45,000 dead, said GVA, a figure [that] has prompted the White House to speak of an “epidemic”.

So far in 2022, according to the organization, 12,166 have sustained injuries from gun violence, with a total of 179 shootings carried out over the United States.

Gendron’s AR-15 Rifle
A Gun Is Worth a Thousand Nazi Words

Mohammad Al-Jaber / AL-Jazeera

(May 15, 2022) — …. The rifle acted as a canvas for the radical teen to fill as a means of portraying his views in a manner that reflected the racism deep-rooted within him.

Looking at the carrying handle of the rifle, one can see the number 14.

The number 14 is widely used by white supremacists as a reference to the “14 Words”; the most popular white supremacist slogan coined by David Lane, a member of The Order, a white supremacist terrorist group.

“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” the 14 words read.

The N-word

Looking at the front sight housing, one can clearly see the n-word. There is no need for introducing the infamous term coined by slave-owners to dehumanize their slaves and inherited by their white successors that still use it to discriminate against black people.

From left to right, Gendron’s racism can be summarized with just a few words written down on the murder weapon.

“BLM MOGGED”

BLM is clearly in reference to the Black Lives Matter movement that gained momentum all over the world in light of widespread discrimination and police brutality. The word MOG, on the other hand, means to overpower a certain person, movement, or ideology; to “assert one’s dominance over”.

Philip Manshaus

Philip Manshaus is a 21-year-old Nazi from Norway who was indicted for terrorism and murder. He first killed his step-sister Johanne Ihle-Hansen, 17, and then opened fire at a mosque in Oslo.

His trial for terror and murder saw him spouting various racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

The only victim of his actions was his step-sister, as he was unable to hurt any of the worshippers who were at the mosque during the attempted attack.

John Earnest

John Earnest is a 19-year-old from California who was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison for federal hate crimes over a Synagogue shooting and attempted Mosque arson due to his extremist, white supremacist views.

He attempted to kill 50 people at the Poway Synagogue in California, US, and only managed to kill one woman and injure three others.

Earnest also admitted that over a month before his attempted Synagogue massacre, he attempted to burn down the Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque in California, citing his hatred of Muslims and the religious character of the building as the reason being.

Anders Breivik

Anders Breivik is a 43-year-old Nazi from Norway who has been in prison for more than a decade for terrorism and murder. He holds the record for the Nordic state’s worst murdering rampage, when he set off a bomb in Oslo, killing eight people.

Afterward, he headed to Utoya Island where he stalked the teen members of the Labor Party’s youth wing before murdering another 69 people.

Breivik has come to the limelight again recently after he appeared in court asking to be released on parole after serving 10 years in prison. His trial was characterized by him claiming he had left violence behind him while performing a Nazi salute….

Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.