Payton Gendron: What we know about the Buffalo supermarket ...

CNN —

The 18-year-old man who allegedly shot and killed 10 people Saturday afternoon in Buffalo, New York, was motivated by hate, authorities said, targeting a supermarket in the heart of a predominantly Black community.

Eleven of the 13 people shot by the White suspect at the Tops Friendly Market were Black, officials said. Among the victims, who range in age from 20 to 86, were people grocery shopping, a heroic former police officer who tried to stop the gunman, a long-term substitute teacher and a taxi driver who “took pride in helping people.”

“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said, calling the shooting a “straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community.”

The US Department of Justice is investigating the shooting “as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism,” according to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Payton S. Gendron of Conklin, New York, has been charged with first-degree murder, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said in a May 14 news release. He has pleaded not guilty.

On June 1, a grand jury returned a 25-count indictment against Gendron. He is facing 10 counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of second-degree murder as a hate crime and three counts of attempted murder as a hate crime, according to court documents. Gendron is also facing a charge of domestic terror and a weapons charge, according to court documents.

Gendron pleaded not guilty to the 25-count indictment, his attorney said in court Thursday afternoon.

Gendron’s defense attorney told CNN on May 17 he would not issue a statement now.

Here’s what we know about the suspect.

He planned to ‘continue his rampage,’ police say

When the suspect arrived at the store around 2:30 p.m., he was heavily armed, wearing tactical gear – including a tactical helmet along with plated armor, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said – and had a camera that was livestreaming his actions.

He used an assault weapon, Flynn said during a news conference.

The suspect shot four people outside of the grocery store, three fatally, Flynn said in his news release. When he entered the store, he exchanged fire with an armed security guard, who authorities said was a retired Buffalo police officer. The security guard died of his injuries. The suspect shot eight more people in the store, six of whom died, the release said.

Confronted by police, the suspected shooter took off some of his tactical gear and surrendered, per Buffalo police.

The suspect planned to continue his shooting rampage beyond the Tops supermarket, Gramaglia told CNN on Monday, saying there was “some documentation” he allegedly planned to target “another large superstore.”

“There was evidence that was uncovered that he had plans, had he gotten out of here, to continue his rampage and continue shooting people,” he said.

The suspect made very disturbing statements describing his motive and state of mind following his arrest, an official familiar with the investigation told CNN. Those statements were clear and filled with hate toward the Black community, with the alleged shooter making it known he was targeting Black people, the official said.

The alleged shooter was “studying” previous hate attacks and shootings, investigators have learned via search warrants and other methods.

The suspect was in Buffalo on Friday, the day before the shooting, per Gramaglia, who said he was doing reconnaissance at the store.

Shonnell Harris Teague, an operations manager at the store, saw him Friday afternoon at the store and told him to leave because it appeared he was bothering customers, she told ABC News.

Harris Teague saw the suspect sitting on a bench outside with a camper bag on his back, wearing the same camouflage clothing he wore Saturday, she told ABC. After being asked to leave, he did so without argument, she said.

Her brother, the Rev. Tim Newkirk, backed up the account, noting the suspect “was in there posing as a beggar and was looking for change,” he told The Buffalo News.

“She had to politely escort him out. They have a no peddling policy in the Tops, no panhandling,” Newkirk said, “so she was just letting him know that this was not the place where you do that.”

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He spent months plotting his attack, social media posts show

Gendron is believed to have visited Buffalo in early March, Gramaglia said Monday, citing the suspect’s “digital footprint.” Social media posts analyzed by CNN reveal the suspect visited the Tops store in March and had been extensively planning his attack for several months up until the day of the shooting.

According to the posts – which Gendron originally shared on Discord, then on the hate-filled online forum 4Chan – the suspect drove March 8 to the supermarket in Buffalo.

The posts were made visible to a small group of people about 30 minutes before the shooting began, according to a statement from Discord.

Gendron wrote in the posts that he went into Tops Market three times during his visit: at 12 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. He wrote about activity inside the store each time he went in – noting how many Black and White people were in the market and also drawing a map of the inside of the store.

During his 4 p.m. visit, Gendron was approached by a “Black armed security guard” who asked the suspect what he was doing going in and out of the store, he wrote. The shooter told the security guard he was collecting “consensus data,” according to the posts.

“In hindsight that was a close call,” Gendron wrote.

In a post on March 10, Gendron wrote, “I’m going to have to kill that security guard at Tops I hope he doesn’t kill me or even hurt me instantly.”

The shooter wrote about how he planned his attack for March 15 but then delayed it several times.

In the posts, Gendron cites online research in choosing Buffalo as his site of attack – saying the 14208 ZIP code in Buffalo has a higher Black population than the other locations he was considering.

The shooter considered attacking a church or an elementary school but ultimately chose the supermarket because of the number of people that go to grocery stores, he wrote.

He referred to Google’s “popular times” graph for the Tops Friendly Market in determining the time he would plan his attack – so the grocery store would be busiest.

Discord said that a “private, invite-only server” was created by the suspect and that “approximately 30 minutes prior to the attack,” a small group of people was invited to and joined the server.

“Before that, our records indicate no other people saw the diary chat log in this private server,” it said in a statement to CNN.

“Our deepest sympathies are with the victims and their families,” the company said. “Hate has no place on Discord and we are committed to combating violence and extremism. We are continuing to do everything we can to assist law enforcement and the investigation remains ongoing.”

CNN asked the Discord spokesperson when the company became aware of Gendron’s posts and if any of the individuals who were invited to view his private server alerted moderators to the content but did not receive an immediate response.

CNN also reached out to 4Chan asking about Gendron’s posts being shared on the platform but has not heard back.

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Document talks about ‘dwindling size’ of White population

Investigators are sifting for clues in a 180-page document attributed to Gendron and posted online, Flynn said. The purported “manifesto” allegedly was written by the suspect, officials have said.

“We are obviously going through that with a fine-toothed comb and reviewing that for all evidence that may lead us to besides the manifesto itself,” prosecutor Flynn told CNN.

“All the evidence that we ascertain from that manifesto, from wherever that manifesto leads us, other pieces of evidence we already had, we can then use that and develop more charges potentially,” he added.

The document, independently obtained by CNN shortly after the attack and before authorities released the suspect’s name, is allegedly written by a person claiming to be Payton Gendron confessing to the attack.

The author attributes the internet for most of his beliefs and describes himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an anti-Semite.

The author bought ammo for some time but didn’t get serious about planning the attack until January, per the document. The author also writes about his perceptions of the dwindling size of the White population and claims of ethnic and cultural replacement of Whites.

The suspect allegedly chose to attack the Tops store in Buffalo because it was in a majority-Black ZIP code within driving distance of where he lived, and he researched what time it would be busiest, according to the document.

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He’s from a town hours away from Buffalo

The ZIP code that includes the store, 14208, is 78% Black – the highest percentage of Black population of any ZIP code in upstate New York – per the Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey. Conklin, where the suspect is from, is a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Buffalo.

Gendron’s parents were not known to hold extremist views, according to two New York residents who have worked with his parents at the state Department of Transportation and who shared their views on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

“I never thought of the family as racist or hateful,” said one coworker, who said she was heartbroken for the victims’ families as well as Payton’s parents, Pam and Paul. “I can’t wrap my head around this tragedy.”

Payton Gendron talks with his attorney during his arraignment Saturday in Buffalo City Court. Mark Mulville/AP

Gendron was a worker at the local Conklin Reliable Market for about four months before he left about three months ago, the store’s owner said, adding he was very quiet and left on his own terms, giving two weeks’ notice.

Gendron’s mother regularly would walk in the neighborhood, neighbors said. She was a nice woman, one said, adding they “never would have thought that in a million years” Gendron would have racist views. “It’s pretty shocking,” the neighbor added.

When you talked to Payton Gendron, “you wouldn’t get more than a word or two” from him, another neighbor said.

Gendron’s former classmates said while he could sometimes be a loner and “odd,” he wasn’t known to be violent.

“I just don’t understand what convinced him to do this,” said Bryce Gibbs, who said he attended elementary through high school with Gendron and described him as “nice.”

He made ‘generalized threat’ at high school

Gendron made a “generalized threat” in June while he attended Susquehanna Valley Central High School in Conklin, Gramaglia said Sunday, adding the threat was not racially motivated.

State police took the student for a mental health evaluation, Gramaglia said at a Buffalo news conference. After a day and a half, he was released.

The suspect was visited last year by New York State Police after he did a high school project about murder-suicides, Garcia told CNN on Monday. Concerns about alleged mental health issues “were brought to light” after he turned in the post-graduation project, the sheriff said.

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State police spokesperson Beau Duffy said that on June 8, 2021, state police officers responded to the high school to investigate a report that a 17-year-old student made a threatening statement. The student was taken into custody under NYS Mental Health Law section 9.41 and transported to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Duffy confirmed it was an evaluation and not an involuntary commitment – so it would not have prevented the suspected shooter from purchasing or possessing a gun under federal law.

State police were unable to confirm how long the person was in the hospital or the findings of the evaluation. The agency also refused to name the then-17-year-old.

The suspect addressed the incident in posts on Discord later shared on 4Chan, writing in a post-dated January 30 that he “had to go to a hospital’s ER because I said the word’s ‘murder/suicide’ to an online paper in economics class.”

“I got out of it,” the suspect claims, “because I stuck with the story that I was getting out of class and I just stupidly wrote that down. That is the reason I believe I am still able to purchase guns.”

“It was not a joke,” the post reads, “I wrote that down because that’s what I was planning to do.”

The suspect goes on to claim his mental health evaluation lasted only 15 minutes after he spent hours waiting in the emergency room. CNN has reached out to New York State police about this account.

Broome County District Attorney Michael Korchak, the district attorney in the suspect’s hometown, is reviewing “all aspects” of last year’s investigation into the threat and also “going back several years” to understand the suspected shooter’s behavior and relationships with family, teachers and other students.

But it’s “hard to say” whether more should have been done in June, Korchak told CNN.

“Unfortunately this is nothing new in the criminal justice system,” Korchak said. “Individuals that have mental health issues may have it under control for a period of time, and then one day they just snap and things as tragic as this happen.”

Investigators are talking to the suspect’s parents and they are being cooperative, Korchak said.

Gun was legally purchased, governor says

The gun used in the mass shooting was purchased legally in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul told CNN earlier, describing the weapon as an AR-15. It’s believed the high-capacity magazine was purchased out of state, the governor added.

In addition to the AR-15, Gendron had a rifle and a shotgun in his car, Gramaglia said. The online diatribe attributed to Gendron said he planned to bring those same three types of guns with him that day.

Here’s how the suspect legally obtained guns

The “main firearm” Gendron planned to use was a Bushmaster XM-15 assault rifle that he bought from Vintage Firearms, a gun store in Endicott, New York, before “illegally modifying it,” according to the diatribe. Gendron passed a background check before he bought the gun and he didn’t stick out among his other customers, Vintage Firearms owner, Robert Donald, told The New York Times; no one at the store has responded to CNN’s requests for comment.

Gendron also bought a Mossberg 500 shotgun from Pennsylvania Guns and Ammo, a store in Great Bend, about a 10-minute drive across the state border from his hometown of Conklin, the racist document attributed to him states.

The suspect passed a background check at the store and legally purchased the shotgun in December 2021, the store owner, who did not want his name used, told CNN. The shotgun was not used in Saturday’s shooting.

The third gun was a Savage Axis XP rifle that Gendron’s father bought for him for Christmas in 2020 “so that I could go hunting without borrowing my cousin’s guns,” the document states.

The racist statement also says the shooter planned to use the shotgun and rifle to shoot other Black people on the street as he drove away from the supermarket.

CNN obtained a photo of two long guns allegedly brought to the scene. The photo was confirmed by two law enforcement sources.

A photo of two long guns allegedly found in the suspect's car, according to law enforcement sources. CNN

The image shows the weapons inside a car, which was found by law enforcement after the suspect’s arrest, according to one of the law enforcement sources. The weapons were not used in the shooting. Writing appears all over the weapons, including the phrase “White Lives Matter” and names including what appears to be the name of a victim of a crime allegedly committed by a Black suspect.

Other notations seized by investigators reflect the racist beliefs of the shooter, as well as his obsession with mass killing, according to a law enforcement source.

He allegedly livestreamed on Twitch

The shooting suspect used the popular livestreaming platform Twitch to stream a live broadcast during the attack, the company confirmed Saturday.

The company was “devastated” to hear about the shooting, it said, adding the user “has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”

CNN obtained a portion of the livestream showing the alleged shooter pulling up to a Tops store.

The video is recorded from the point of view of the alleged shooter as he drives into the supermarket’s parking lot. The person is seen in the rearview mirror wearing a helmet and is heard saying, “Just got to go for it,” before he pulls into the front of the store.

In the video, store patrons can be seen walking through the parking lot as the suspect drives up.

The company removed the livestream less than two minutes after the violence started, a spokesperson for Twitch said. The company did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about whether the suspect was firing when the livestream was halted.

He will likely face more charges

The suspect pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree murder Saturday evening before Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah, according to the judge and the district attorney’s news release. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, the release said.

Gendron’s attorney’s request for a mental health forensic examination was withdrawn, Flynn said. Gendron remains on suicide watch, Garcia said, and in custody without bail.

There may be more charges coming, officials said.

“My office is working closely with the US Attorney’s Office and our partners in law enforcement into potential terrorism and hate crimes. This is an active investigation and additional charges may be filed,” Flynn said.

Gendron is set to return to court Thursday morning for a felony hearing, the release said.

He is likely the “most highly visible incarcerated individual” in the country, Garcia told CNN on Monday. There are video cameras in his cell, and he remains under a sheriff’s deputy’s watch at all times.

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Buffalo shooting suspect visited the area in early March, police and ...

CNN —

The 18-year-old White man accused of killing 10 people in a racist mass shooting Saturday at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, had visited the area in early March, police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Monday.

“We found some things that show that he was here in early March, and then again, we know he was here on Friday, basically doing reconnaissance on the area,” Gramaglia told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “He was in the store, both on Friday and Saturday.”

The suspect, who is from the city of Conklin, about 200 miles away, opened fire Saturday at the Tops Friendly Markets store in a predominantly Black neighborhood, shooting 13 people before surrendering to police.

The massacre follows other mass shootings in recent years in which authorities say a White supremacist suspect was motivated by racial hatred, including in El Paso, Texas, Charleston, South Carolina, and as far as Norway and New Zealand.

The commissioner said he couldn’t comment on whether the suspect was at the store in March but in social media posts the accused shooter revealed he had been to the store March 8 and spent months planning his attack.

The suspect, Payton S. Gendron, wrote in posts on Discord that were shared on the hate-filled online forum 4Chan that he went into the store at noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. during his March visit. He wrote that on his way from his home in Broome County he got a speeding ticket.

Gendron noted in his post the activity taking place inside the market, like how many Black and White people were there. He also drew a map depicting the store aisles, pharmacy, bakery and exit points of the building.

A woman chalks a message Sunday at a makeshift memorial outside of a Tops grocery store in Buffalo. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Gendron wrote that as he did his last reconnaissance visit he was approached by a “Black armed security guard” who said, “I’ve seen you go in and out… What are you doing?” The suspect wrote that he told the security guard that he is collecting “consensus data,” for which the security guard said he needed to talk to the manager.

“I asked for his name and he told me and I instantly forgot, then I said bye and thanks and walked back to my car,” Gendron wrote. “In hindsight that was a close call.”

In a post Gendron wrote March 10, “I’m going to have to kill that security guard at Tops I hope he doesn’t kill me or even hurt me instantly.”

He added that the attack would take place March 15 but he ended up postponing the date several times.

Gendron also considered attacking a church or an elementary school before settling on a supermarket, he wrote.

The information comes as investigators have dug into a 180-page diatribe posted online and attributed to the suspected gunman that lays out in detail his motives and plans for the attack.

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Suspect planned to shoot people at other sites, sheriff says

Gendron pleaded not guilty Saturday night to a charge of first-degree murder. More charges are expected. He is in custody without bail and under suicide watch, officials said.

The suspect wore tactical gear for protection and livestreamed the attack on Twitch, authorities said. The company said it took down the video within minutes, but social media sites have struggled to stop its spread.

Inside and outside the store, he allegedly used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 10 people and wound three more, one of whom remained hospitalized Monday morning. Eleven victims were Black, officials said, and the attack is being investigated as a hate crime.

After the shooting, he exited the building and surrendered to police. Police said Monday he had plans to kill more Black people if police hadn’t arrived.

“There was evidence that was uncovered that he had plans, had he gotten out of here, to continue his rampage and continue shooting people,” Gramaglia told CNN. “He’d even spoken about possibly going to another store.”

The suspect had other “target locations” down the street from the supermarket, according to Erie County Sheriff John Garcia. Authorities found another rifle and a shotgun in his vehicle, the sheriff told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“He was not going to be finished with killing as many Blacks as possible,” Garcia said. He credited the quick arrival of two police officers for preventing other attacks.

Those slain range in age from 32 to 86, police said, among them the former police officer who tried to stop the gunman and a number of people doing their regular weekend grocery shopping.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown on Monday praised the guard’s heroism, as well as the quick police response.

“Many more people would probably have been killed and injured if the Buffalo Police did not get to the scene as quickly,” Brown said. “They were able to subdue the gunman, they were able to take him into custody without incident and protect the surrounding neighborhood.”

The suspect has a court hearing Thursday, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said. He also said a request for a mental health forensic examination has been withdrawn by the suspect’s attorney.

Suspect allegedly wrote 180 pages outlining beliefs

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Since the shooting, officials have looked at what they say was the suspect’s racist intent and his history.

“We continue to investigate this case as a hate crime, a federal hate crime, and as a crime perpetrated by a racially motivated, violent extremist,” Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI Buffalo field office, said Sunday at a news conference.

Federal prosecutors are expected to bring charges against the suspect in the coming days, law enforcement officials told CNN on Monday.

The 180-page document attributed to Gendron and posted online before the shooting lays out the alleged shooter’s motives and shows the meticulous planning that went into the massacre. CNN independently obtained the document shortly after the mass shooting – before authorities released the name of the suspect – and law enforcement sources have told CNN its description of guns matches the weapons the suspect used.

In it, the suspect allegedly detailed how he had been radicalized by reading the online message board 4chan and described himself as a White supremacist, fascist and anti-Semite. He subscribed to a “great replacement” theory, or the false belief that White Americans are being “replaced” by people of other races. Once a fringe idea, replacement theory has recently become a talking point for Fox News’ host Tucker Carlson as well as other prominent conservatives.

The suspect also wrote he was inspired by the 2019 mass killing at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which the gunman similarly wrote a lengthy document and livestreamed the attack.

The Buffalo suspect wrote he began seriously planning the attack in January. The document’s author also writes that he targeted this Buffalo neighborhood because it’s in a ZIP code that “has the highest Black percentage that is close enough to where I live.”

Indeed, the ZIP code that includes the store, 14208, is 78% Black, the highest percentage of a Black population in any ZIP code in upstate New York, according to the US Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey. The shooting suspect is from the town of Conklin, New York, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Buffalo near the Pennsylvania border.

The document also states the suspect bought the main gun he used, a Bushmaster XM-15, from a gun store before “illegally modifying it.”

“We are obviously going through (the document) with a fine-toothed comb and reviewing that for all evidence,” prosecutor Flynn told CNN.

Video shows shooter pointing gun at man but not firing

CNN has obtained video recorded inside the store showing the alleged gunman pointing his rifle at a person on the ground but not shooting him.

The video is taken from the point of view of the shooter, after he’s fired at several people. In it, the shooter turns the weapon on a man who is curled up on the ground near what looks like a checkout lane.

“No!” the man on the ground shouts.

The shooter says, “Sorry,” and then turns away and continues walking down the aisle of cash registers.

The video ends at this point and it is unknown what happened next.

It’s not clear why the man was apparently spared or why the gunman says “sorry.”

Suspect made ‘ominous’ threat last year

A year ago, the suspect landed on the radar of police as a student at Susquehanna Valley High School, officials said.

He made an “ominous” reference to murder-suicide through a virtual learning platform in June, the Susquehanna Valley Central School District said Monday. Though the threat was not specific and did not involve other students, the instructor immediately informed an administrator who escalated the matter to New York State Police, a spokesperson told CNN, adding the law limits what more school officials can say.

Concern arose after the suspect turned in a high school project about murder-suicides, leading to a state police investigation, said Garcia, the sheriff.

“The state police arrived at his house at that point last year,” he said. “He stayed at a facility – I’m not sure if it was a hospital or a mental health facility – for a day and a half.”

State police investigated an unnamed 17-year-old student who had made “a threatening statement” in June at the high school, they confirmed. The student was taken into custody and to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.

It was not the sort of involuntary commitment that would have precluded the suspect from purchasing a weapon, state police spokesperson Beau Duffy said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the range in ages of those killed in the Buffalo supermarket shooting. They were between 32 and 86 years old.

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Exclusive: Musk's SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical ...

Washington CNN —

Since they first started arriving in Ukraine last spring, the Starlink satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX have been a vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.

So far roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine, with Musk tweeting on Friday the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”

But those charitable contributions could be coming to an end, as SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.

Documents obtained by CNN show that last month Musk’s SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service as it has. The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months.

“We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in the September letter.

Among the SpaceX documents sent to the Pentagon and seen by CNN is a previously unreported direct request made to Musk in July by the Ukrainian military’s commanding general, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, for almost 8,000 more Starlink terminals.

In a separate cover letter to the Pentagon, an outside consultant working for SpaceX wrote, “SpaceX faces terribly difficult decisions here. I do not think they have the financial ability to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General Zaluzhniy.”

The documents, which have not been previously reported, provide a rare breakdown of SpaceX’s own internal numbers on Starlink, detailing the costs and payments associated with the thousands of terminals in Ukraine. They also shed new light on behind-the-scenes negotiations that have provided millions of dollars in communications hardware and services to Ukraine at little cost to Kyiv.

The Pentagon confirmed they received correspondence from SpaceX about the funding of the Starlink satellite communications product in Ukraine, a statement from Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Friday.

Earlier in the day, Singh confirmed the Pentagon had been in communication with SpaceX but did not say whether it was over the funding of the Starlink satellite communication product.

Musk on Friday said that in asking the Pentagon to pick up the bill for Starlink in Ukraine, he was following the advice of a Ukrainian diplomat who responded to Musk’s Ukraine peace plan earlier this month, before the letter was sent to the Pentagon, with: “F*** off.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, responded earlier this month to Musk’s claimed peace plan for Russia’s Ukraine war by saying: “F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk.”

“We’re just following his recommendation,” Musk said on Friday, responding to a tweet that referenced CNN’s reporting and Melnyk’s comments, even though the letter SpaceX sent to the Pentagon was sent before the Twitter exchange.

Reports of outages

The letters come amid recent reports of wide-ranging Starlink outages as Ukrainian troops attempt to retake ground occupied by Russia in the eastern and southern parts of the country.

Sources familiar with the outages said they suddenly affected the entire frontline as it stood on September 30. “That has affected every effort of the Ukrainians to push past that front,” said one person familiar with the outages who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “Starlink is the main way units on the battlefield have to communicate.”

This photograph taken on September 25 shows an antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by US tech billionaire Elon Musk in Izyum, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

There was no warning to Ukrainian forces, a second person said, adding that now when Ukraine liberates an area a request has to be made for Starlink services to be turned on.

The Financial Times first reported the outages which resulted in a “catastrophic” loss of communication, a senior Ukrainian official said. In a tweet responding to the article, Musk didn’t dispute the outage, saying that what is happening on the battlefield is classified.

SpaceX’s suggestion it will stop funding Starlink also comes amid rising concern in Ukraine over Musk’s allegiance. Musk recently tweeted a controversial peace plan that would have Ukraine give up Crimea and control over the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the question of who Musk sides with, he responded that he “still very much support[s] Ukraine” but fears “massive escalation.”

Musk also argued privately last month that Ukraine doesn’t want peace negotiations right now and that if they went along with his plan, “Russia would accept those terms,” according to a person who heard them.

“Ukraine knows that its current government and wartime efforts are totally dependent on Starlink,” the person familiar with the discussions said. “The decision to keep Starlink running or not rests entirely in the hands of one man. That’s Elon Musk. He hasn’t been elected, no one decided to give him that power. He has it because of the technology and the company he built.”

On Tuesday Musk denied a report he has spoken to Putin directly about Ukraine. On Thursday, when a Ukrainian minister tweeted that Starlink is essential to Ukraine’s infrastructure, Musk replied: “You’re most welcome. Glad to support Ukraine.”

“The gall to look like heroes”

More than seven months into the war, it’s hard to overstate the impact Starlink has had in Ukraine. The government in Kyiv, Ukrainian troops as well and NGOs and civilians have relied on the nimble, compact and easy-to-use units created by SpaceX. It’s not only used for voice and electronic communication but to help fly drones and send back video to correct artillery fire.

CNN has seen it used at numerous Ukrainian bases.

Elon Musk pauses and looks down as he speaks during a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

“Starlink has been absolutely essential because the Russians have targeted the Ukrainian communications infrastructure,” said Dimitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank. “Without that they’d be really operating in the blind in many cases.”

Though Musk has received widespread acclaim and thanks for responding to requests for Starlink service to Ukraine right as the war was starting, in reality, the vast majority of the 20,000 terminals have received full or partial funding from outside sources, including the US government, the UK and Poland, according to the SpaceX letter to the Pentagon.

SpaceX’s request that the US military foot the bill has rankled top brass at the Pentagon, with one senior defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the gall to look like heroes” while having others pay so much and now presenting them with a bill for tens of millions per month.

According to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities. Those entities also paid for about 30% of the internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 each month per unit for the most advanced service. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted there are around 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.)

In his July letter to Musk, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Zaluzhniy, praised the Starlink units’ “exceptional utility” and said some 4,000 terminals had been deployed by the military. However, around 500 terminals per month are destroyed in the fighting, Zaluzhniy said, before asking for 6,200 more terminals for the Ukrainian military and intelligence services and 500 per month going forward to offset the losses.

SpaceX said they responded by asking Zaluzhniy to instead take up his request to the Department of Defense.

On September 8, the senior director of government sales for SpaceX wrote the Pentagon saying the costs have gotten too high, approaching $100 million. The official asked the Department of Defense to pick up Ukraine’s new request as well as ongoing service costs, totaling $124 million for the remainder of 2022.

Those costs, according to the senior defense official, would reach almost $380 million for a full year.

SpaceX declined repeated requests for comment on both the outages and their recent request to the Pentagon. A lawyer for Musk did not reply to a request for comment. Defense Department spokesman Bob Ditchey told CNN, “The Department continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine’s armed forces as they repel Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression. We do not have anything else to add at this time.”

Breaking down the costs

Early US support for Starlink came via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which according to the Washington Post spent roughly $3 million on hardware and services in Ukraine. The largest single contributor of terminals, according to the newly obtained documents, is Poland with payment for almost 9,000 individual terminals.

US Pentagon in Washington DC building looking down aerial view from above Ivan Cholakov/iStockphoto/Getty Images

The US has provided almost 1,700 terminals. Other contributors include the UK, NGOs and crowdfunding.

The far more expensive part, however, is the ongoing connectivity. SpaceX says it has paid for about 70% of the service provided to Ukraine and claims to have offered that highest level – $4,500 a month – to all terminals in Ukraine despite the majority only having signed on for the cheaper $500 per month service.

The terminals themselves cost $1500 and $2500 for the two models sent to Ukraine, the documents say, while consumer models on Starlink’s website are far cheaper and service in Ukraine is just $60 per month.

That’s just 1.3% of the service rate SpaceX says it needs the Pentagon to start paying.

“You could say he’s trying to get money from the government or just trying to say ‘I don’t want to be part of this anymore,’” said the person familiar with Ukraine’s requests for Starlink. Given the recent outages and Musk’s reputation for being unpredictable, “Feelings are running really high on the Ukrainian side,” this person said.

Musk is the biggest shareholder of the privately-held SpaceX. In May, SpaceX disclosed that its valuation had risen to $127 billion and it has raised $2 billion this year, CNBC reported.

Last week, Musk faced a barrage of criticism on Twitter – including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – after presenting in a series of tweets his peace plan to end the war. It would include giving Crimea to Russia and re-do referenda, supervised by the United Nations this time, in the four regions Russia recently illegally annexed.

It echoed comments he’d made last month at an exclusive closed-door conference in Aspen, Colorado called “The Weekend,” at which Musk told a room full of attendees that Ukraine should seek peace now because they’ve had recent victories.

“This is the time to do it. They don’t want to do it, that’s for sure. But this is the time to do it,” he said, according to a person in the room. “Everyone wants to seek peace when they’re losing but they don’t want to seek peace when they’re winning. For now.”

North Carolina school district adopts new action plan after parent ...

CNN —

A North Carolina school board voted unanimously Monday to approve an action plan after reported racial bullying in the district, including a student-organized mock auction of Black students.

A group of parents and community members had called on the Chatham County School District to make changes after several reported racial bullying instances at schools in the district.

In a Facebook post March 4, Ashley Palmer said her Black son told her that some of his classmates were sold in a mock slave auction at J.S. Waters School, which serves grades K-8.

“Our son experienced a slave auction by his classmates and when he opened up we were made aware that this type of stuff seems to be the norm so much that he didn’t think it was worth sharing. His friend ‘went for $350’ and another student was the Slavemaster because he ‘knew how to handle them.’” Palmer wrote in her post. She wrote that students also sang the n-word.

In a later post, Palmer said that the students involved in the auction received a one-day suspension, and alleges her son was assaulted by a classmate and has faced “continuous harassment” at the school since he reported the incident.

CNN was unable to reach Palmer for additional information.

During public comment at the Chatham County School Board meeting Monday, several students, parents and community members spoke to the board about their experiences with racism and concerns over the incident.

One mother, who said her son was one of the children allegedly sold in a mock slave auction, told the board about the conversation she had with him after hearing from another parent what happened.

“I asked my son why didn’t he tell me? He responded with, ‘Mom it wasn’t a big deal,’” she said. “I am a mother who just had to explain to my son why being auctioned as a slave is unacceptable. This moment in my son’s early life has already made him question playing the sport he loves with his friends, and I pray this does not impact him mentally and socially going forward.”

Before presenting the school board with an action plan, Superintendent Anthony Jackson offered an apology.

“As a father, as an educator, as a grandfather, tonight was very difficult. It’s difficult to sit here and listen and hear and hurt for our children. Schools are for children, and as partners with parents, we are responsible for helping students realize their full potential. As many people identified tonight, creating safe environments for students is the first promise schools make to families,” he said.

“As a newcomer to our school system and to this community, before I offer any plans, I want to do something that needs to be done here publicly. I want to offer an apology. An apology to every single student who has ever felt unsafe while in our care. To every student who has ever felt demeaned, disrespected or marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, sex, gender, religion or disability. In Chatham County Schools we proudly boast that diversity is our strength and moving forward it will be our intentional focus to ensure that this celebration includes everyone. Moving forward my personal commitment to you is that we will do better,” he continued.

Jackson’s action plan included changes in the district policy to how discriminatory situations would be handled from start to finish – including notification of parents and guardians, investigation, discipline, social support and resources for victims, staff training and an after-action plan.

The board voted unanimously to adopt his action plan.

When reached for more information on the incidents, the Chatham County School District referred CNN to a letter that Jackson sent to the community and his comments during the board meeting.

Mass shooting at Buffalo supermarket was a racist hate crime, police ...

Buffalo, NY CNN —

The 18-year-old suspected of opening fire at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday told authorities he was targeting the Black community, according to an official familiar with the investigation.

The alleged gunman made disturbing statements describing his motive and state of mind following his arrest, the official said. The statements were clear and filled with hate toward the Black community. Investigators also uncovered other information from search warrants and other methods indicating the alleged shooter was “studying” previous hate attacks and shootings, the official said.

The revelation comes a day after a gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others at the Tops Friendly Markets store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo. Eleven of the people who were shot were Black, officials said. The victims range in age from 20 to 86, police said. Buffalo police identified all 13 victims Sunday. Among them were a former police officer who tried to stop the shooter, the octogenarian mother of the city’s former fire commissioner and a long-term substitute teacher.

Two people remain hospitalized in stable condition, a spokesman for Erie County Medical Center said Saturday night.

Live updates: Buffalo supermarket shooting

The suspect was identified as Payton S. Gendron, a rifle-toting 18-year-old from Conklin, New York, who allegedly wrote a White supremacist manifesto online, traveled about 200 miles to the store and livestreamed the attack, authorities said.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday the attack was a racist hate crime and will be prosecuted as such.

“The evidence that we have uncovered so far makes no mistake that this is an absolute racist hate crime. It will be prosecuted as a hate crime,” he said. “This is someone who has hate in their heart, soul and mind.”

People gather outside a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were killed on Saturday. Derek Gee/The Buffalo News/AP

Investigators believe the suspect acted on his own in the shooting, Gramaglia said. The suspect was in Buffalo a day before the shooting and did some reconnaissance at the Tops Friendly Markets store, the commissioner said.

Gendron, the suspect, surrendered to police and was taken into custody. He was charged with first-degree murder, prosecutors said, and pleaded not guilty in court Saturday night, Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah told CNN.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said Gendron is currently under suicide watch.

On Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $2.8 million in federal and state funding for the victims and their families, according to a statement from her office.

“The past 24 hours have been traumatizing for New Yorkers, and my administration will spare no effort to ensure the victims of this act of terrorism by a white supremacist are receiving all the resources and support they need,” Hochul said in the statement. “The entire world is watching how we will come together as New Yorkers to overcome this unthinkable tragedy. Buffalo, my hometown, is the City of Good Neighbors and New York State will be good neighbors for them.”

New York State’s Office of Victim Services will be in Buffalo throughout the week to help administer funding and assist victims and families in obtaining financial assistance from the state, according to the statement.

In addition, Hochul announced a partnership with rideshare services Uber and Lyft to provide transport to and from local grocery stores for affected community members.

The grocery store company, Tops Markets, is also providing free transportation to members of the Buffalo community affected by the shooting “to ensure our neighbors are able to meet their grocery and pharmacy needs,” according to an update on Twitter from the grocery chain.

“While the Tops location at Jefferson Avenue will remain closed until further notice, we are steadfast in our commitment to serving every corner of our community as we have for the past 60 years,” the statement reads. “Knowing the importance of this location and serving families on the east side of the city, we have taken immediate steps to ensure our neighbors are able to meet their grocery and pharmacy needs by providing free bus shuttle service starting today.”

Saturday’s attack bears similarities to a number of mass shootings in recent years that were motivated by hate and intended to be seen online, including the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

The Buffalo attack was the deadliest US mass shooting of the year. There have been at least 198 mass shootings so far in 2022, per the Gun Violence Archive, which – like CNN – defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not including the shooter.

The owner of a firearms shop in New York told The New York Times that the suspect recently bought a Bushmaster assault weapon. A background check on the suspect at the time showed nothing, Donald told the Times.

“I knew nothing about it until I got the call from them. I couldn’t believe it,” said Robert Donald, whose shop is in Endicott, about 200 miles from Buffalo.

“I just can’t believe it. I don’t understand why an 18-year-old would even do this,” he added. “I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but I feel terrible about it.”

Suspect targeted predominantly Black area

Video Ad Feedback Shooting suspect charged with murder in court appearance 02:17 - Source: WKBW

Investigators are reviewing a 180-page purported manifesto posted online in connection with the shooting. The author of the document, who claims to be Payton Gendron, confesses to the attack and describes himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an anti-Semite.

“We are obviously going through that with a fine-toothed comb and reviewing that for all evidence that may lead us to besides the manifesto itself,” Erie County District Attorney John Flynn told CNN’s Victor Blackwell.

The manifesto’s author says he bought ammo for some time but didn’t get serious about planning the attack until January.

The author writes about his perceptions of the dwindling size of the White population and claims White people are being replaced by non-Whites in a “White genocide.” This “replacement theory,” once a fringe idea, has recently become a talking point for Fox News’ host Tucker Carlson as well as other prominent conservatives.

“We continue to investigate this case as a hate crime, a federal hate crime and as a crime perpetrated by a racially motivated, violent extremist,” said Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo field office.

In the manifesto, the author says the supermarket in Buffalo is in a ZIP code that “has the highest black percentage that is close enough to where I live.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told CNN investigators believe the suspect targeted the busiest place in that area at the busiest time.

“This was targeted by ZIP code,” Hochul said. “This was the highest concentration of African Americans within hours.”

The ZIP code that includes the store, 14208, is 78% Black, according to the US Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey. That is the highest percentage of Black population of any ZIP code in upstate New York.

Hochul said an AR-15 used in the shooting was purchased legally in a gun store in New York state but was modified with a high-capacity magazine, which is not legal in the state.

The suspected gunman had previously been on the radar of police, officials said.

As a student at Susquehanna Valley Central High School, he made a “generalized threat” in June 2021, Gramaglia said. The student was brought in for a mental health evaluation and was released after a day and a half, according to Gramaglia. The threat was not racially motivated, he added.

A spokesman for the New York State Police confirmed to CNN it investigated and responded to a report that a 17-year-old student had made “a threatening statement” in June 2021 at the same high school. The student was taken into custody and transported to a hospital in June 2021 for a mental health evaluation.

State police were unable to confirm how long the individual was in the hospital or the findings of the evaluation. They also refused to name the 17-year-old.

Earlier Sunday, Hochul said on ABC’s “This Week” the suspect had previously been under surveillance with medical authorities related to “something he wrote in high school.”

In his hometown, the suspect worked at the local Conklin Reliable Market for about four months and left about three months ago, according to the store’s owner. The owner described him as very quiet, while a neighbor similarly said “you wouldn’t get more than a word or two” from him.

How the shooting unfolded

Video Ad Feedback Mayor identifies hero who engaged shooter 01:34 - Source: CNN

At around 2:30 p.m., the suspect drove to Tops Friendly Markets near the areas of Masten Park and Kingsley. Wearing tactical gear and armed with an assault weapon, the suspect allegedly shot and killed three people in the parking lot and wounded a fourth, according to a statement from Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn.

The suspect then entered the store and exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard who was a retired member of the Buffalo Police Department, the district attorney said. The guard was identified as Aaron Salter, Brown said.

Because the suspect wore heavy tactical gear, however, the guard’s bullets did not have any effect, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Saturday.

“He was very heavily armed,” the police commissioner said. “He had tactical gear, he had a tactical helmet on, he had a camera that he was livestreaming what he was doing.”

Inside the store, nine people were shot before the suspect was apprehended by police, according to the district attorney’s statement.

In a statement sent to CNN, livestreaming service Twitch confirmed the shooting was streamed and said the user “has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”

CNN obtained a portion of the livestream which showed the suspect arriving at the supermarket in his vehicle. CNN is not airing the video.

People hug near the scene of the mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Markets store Saturday. Joshua Bessex/AP

Grady Lewis said he was outside the supermarket when he heard seven or eight gunshots and saw a White man dressed in tactical gear spraying gunfire at the entry of the store. Law enforcement arrived within two minutes after the shooting began, Lewis told CNN affiliate WKBW. He “heard at least 20 or so shots” before the suspect exited the store.

“He came out, he put the gun to his head, to his chin. Then he dropped it and took off his bulletproof vest, then got on his hands and knees and put his hands behind his back,” Lewis said, describing the moments the suspect was arrested by police. “I thought they were going to shoot him but they didn’t shoot him.”

“I still don’t even believe it happened … that a person would go into a supermarket full of people,” he said. “It was horrible, it was really horrible.”

The Tops Friendly Markets store released a statement Sunday saying it was heartbroken over the violence. “Tops has been committed to this community and to the city of Buffalo for decades and this tragedy will not change that commitment,” the company said.

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Alleged Pelosi attacker posted multiple conspiracy theories | CNN ...

CNN —

The man who allegedly attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband early Friday posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and an acquaintance told CNN that he seemed “out of touch with reality.”

David DePape, 42, was identified by police Friday as the suspect in the assault on Paul Pelosi at the speaker’s San Francisco home.

Three of DePape’s relatives told CNN that DePape has been estranged from his family for years, and confirmed that the Facebook account – which was taken down by the social media company on Friday – belonged to him.

Video Ad Feedback Hear details from Paul Pelosi's coded 911 call that led to his rescue 01:58 - Source: CNN

His stepfather, Gene DePape, said David DePape grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, and left Canada about 20 years ago to pursue a relationship that brought him to California.

“I really don’t know what to think,” the suspect’s uncle, Mark DePape, said of his nephew’s alleged attack on Pelosi. “Hopefully it’s a scam. I don’t want to hear something like that.”

People who knew DePape in California described him as an odd character.

A 2013 article in the San Francisco Chronicle identified him as a “hemp jewelry maker,” and said that he lived with a nudist activist. Other photos published by the Chronicle show DePape – fully clothed – at a nude wedding on the steps of San Francisco City Hall.

Linda Schneider, a California resident, told CNN she got to know DePape roughly eight years ago and that he occasionally housesat for her. When they met, she said, DePape was living in a storage unit in the Berkeley area and told her he had been struggling with hard drugs but was “trying to create a new life for himself.”

She said that he was extremely shy. “He said he couldn’t even go and have a bank account because he was terrified of speaking to a teller,” Schneider said.

But Schneider later received “really disturbing” emails from DePape in which he sounded like a “megalomaniac and so out of touch with reality,” she said. She said she stopped communicating with him “because it seemed so dangerous,” adding that she recalled him “using Biblical justification to do harm.”

DePape’s social media presence similarly paints a picture of someone on a worrying trajectory, falling into conspiracy theories in recent years.

Last year, David DePape posted links on his Facebook page to multiple videos produced by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell falsely alleging that the 2020 election was stolen. Other posts included transphobic images and linked to websites claiming Covid vaccines were deadly. “The death rates being promoted are what ever ‘THEY’ want to be promoted as the death rate,” one post read.

DePape also posted links to YouTube videos with titles like “Democrat FARCE Commission to Investigate January 6th Capitol Riot COLLAPSES in Congress!!!” and “Global Elites Plan To Take Control Of YOUR Money! (Revealed)”

Two days after former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of killing George Floyd, DePape wrote that the trial was “a modern lynching,” falsely indicating that Floyd died of a drug overdose.

He also posted content about the “Great Reset”– the sprawling conspiracy theory that global elites are using coronavirus to usher in a new world order in which they gain more power and oppress the masses. And he complained that politicians making promises to try to win votes “are offering you bribes in exchange for your further enslavement.”

Most of the public posts on DePape’s Facebook page were from 2021. In earlier years, DePape also posted long screeds about religion, including claims that “Jesus is the anti christ.” None of the public posts appeared to mention Pelosi.

Blogs show images of Pelosi, Qanon and antisemitism

More recently, two other blogs written by someone with the username “daviddepape” have posted content similar to that on DePape’s Facebook page.

In a string of posts on a Wordpress.com blog over the course of several days in August 2022, the author complained about big tech censorship and posted statements like “Hitlery did nothing wrong.” The site has since been taken offline.

And another blog, also attributed to “daviddepape,” featured antisemitic screeds and content linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory. One video posted on the site includes a shot of Pelosi swinging a gavel during one of former President Donald Trump’s impeachments, and another video includes an image of Pelosi and other politicians. A third video includes a clip of Pelosi speaking on the House floor.

Other posts from the last few weeks featured videos accusing LGBTQ people of “grooming” children, and declared that “any journalist saying” there is no evidence of election fraud “should be dragged straight out into the street and shot.” The most recent post – linking to a YouTube video comparing colleges to cults – went up the day before the Pelosi attack.

CNN was not able to confirm that the two blogs were written by DePape.

Another former acquaintance of DePape’s also told CNN he exhibited concerning behavior over the years.

Laura Hayes, who also lives in California, said she worked with DePape for a few months roughly a decade ago making hemp bracelets when he was living in a storage shed in the Berkeley area. She said DePape sold the bracelets as a business.

“He was very odd. He didn’t make eye contact very well,” Hayes said. She recalled him saying that “he talks to angels and there will be a hard time coming.” But she didn’t remember any seriously threatening comments, and said she didn’t think much of it because “it’s Berkeley,” a place where eccentric characters aren’t uncommon.

Hayes, who was Facebook friends with DePape, called his more recent posts “so phobic in so many ways” and filled with “so much anger.”

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A North Carolina high school intercom system was allegedly hacked ...

CNN —

An individual hacked into a North Carolina high school’s intercom system Thursday and allegedly made antisemitic remarks over the loudspeaker, according to CNN affiliate WTVD.

Jackie Jordan, principal at Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, issued an apology letter to parents following the incident, according to the letter obtained by WTVD.

It’s difficult to know how many students and staff heard the remarks, which some say were antisemitic, while others in the building reported hearing comments which “included a threat to the President of the United States,” Jordan wrote.

The student responsible for hacking the intercom was identified and will be facing discipline, WTVD reported.

“Appropriate action” against the student will be taken, the principal said in the letter, adding it “may include legal action, school disciplinary action, or both, depending on our findings.”

“I would like to offer my sincere apology to anyone offended by this atrocious act,” Jordan said. “Racism and threats of violence of any kind have no place in our school or anywhere else.”

It is unclear how the individual accessed the intercom system.

CNN has reached out to Enloe Magnet High School and the Wake County School District for comment.

The Raleigh Police Department is investigating the incident, along with the Wake County School administration, Lt. Jason Borneo told CNN in an email. “Due to the age of the individual involved, limited information is available,” Borneo added.

WTVD spoke with several Enloe students attending Shabbat services at a local synagogue Friday night.

“When an antisemitic act happens, it enables more people to say things. It kind of opens a barrier,” Enloe sophomore and Temple Beth Or member Zoe Goldstein told WTVD.

About a dozen families with students attending Enloe are also members of Temple Beth Or’s congregation, WTVD reported.

Enloe senior Andrew Kochman told WTVD it was important for Jordan to send the letter to the entire community.

Beth Or’s Rabbi Lucy Dinner acknowledged the significance of the incident’s timing days before Hanukkah begins on Sunday.

“All the more so we need the Hanukkah. We need to put our light in the window, and we need solidarity. I believe that the message of Hanukkah is very much about freedom of religion, freedom of expression,” Dinner told WTVD.

“That’s what the Maccabees fought for then, that’s what we hope to stand up for, not only for Jews, but really all people.”

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Hannah Sarisohn
Colin Jeffrey

Viktor Bout: The Russian arms dealer swapped for Brittney Griner ...

CNN —

Brittney Griner’s freedom ultimately hinged on the release of a convicted Russian arms dealer whose life story inspired a Hollywood film.

The US basketball star was released on Thursday from Russian detention in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death” by his accusers.

Viktor Bout, a former Soviet military officer, is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles, and provide material support to a terrorist organization. Bout has maintained he is innocent.

The Kremlin has repeatedly called for Bout’s release, slamming his sentencing in 2012 as “baseless and biased.”

Russia’s foreign ministry said Thursday that Bout was returned to Russia after the exchange at Abu Dhabi Airport. Footage shared by Russian state television later showed Bout walking on a tarmac in Abu Dhabi, then boarding and sitting down inside a plane, which later landed in Moscow.

“For a long time, the Russian Federation has been negotiating with the United States on the release of V. A. Bout,” the ministry said in a statement. “Washington categorically refused dialogue on the inclusion of the Russian [citizen] in the exchange scheme. Nevertheless, the Russian Federation continued to actively work to rescue our compatriot.”

It added that as a result of Russia’s negotiations with the US, Bout had been “returned to his homeland.”

Bout’s US lawyer, Steve Zissou, said that Bout was with his wife and daughter. “We are grateful that after 15 long years, Viktor has finally been reunited with his family,” he added.

Griner – who had for years played in the off-season for a Russian women’s basketball team – was arrested on drug smuggling charges at an airport in the Moscow region in February. Despite her testimony that she had inadvertently packed the cannabis oil found in her luggage, she was sentenced to nine years in prison in early August and was moved to a penal colony in Mordovia in mid-November after losing her appeal.

The swap, which US President Joe Biden confirmed on Thursday, did not include another American that the State Department has declared wrongfully detained, Paul Whelan. Whelan was arrested on alleged espionage charges in 2018 and sentenced to 16-years in prison in a trial that US officials have called unfair.

Griner and Whelan’s families had urged the White House to secure their release, including via prisoner exchange if necessary.

At the center of their bid was Bout, a man who eluded international arrest warrants and asset freezes for years.

On the same day, Griner testified in Russian court as part of her ongoing trial on drug charges following her February arrest at a Moscow airport. Whelan was arrested on alleged espionage charges in 2018 and sentenced to 16-years in prison in a trial that US officials have called unfair.

The Russian businessman, who speaks six languages, was arrested in a sting operation in 2008 led by US drug enforcement agents in Thailand posing as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the acronym FARC. He was eventually extradited to the US in 2010 after a protracted court proceeding.

“Viktor Bout has been international arms trafficking enemy number one for many years, arming some of the most violent conflicts around the globe,” said Preet Bharara, the US attorney in Manhattan when Bout was sentenced in New York in 2012.

“He was finally brought to justice in an American court for agreeing to provide a staggering number of military-grade weapons to an avowed terrorist organization committed to killing Americans.”

The trial honed in on Bout’s role in supplying weapons to FARC, a guerrilla group that waged an insurgency in Colombia until 2016. The US said the weapons were intended to kill US citizens.

But Bout’s history in the arms trade extended much further afield. He has been accused of assembling a fleet of cargo planes to traffic military-grade weapons to conflict zones around the world since the 1990s, fueling bloody conflicts from Liberia to Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. Allegations of trafficking activities in Liberia prompted US authorities to freeze his American assets in 2004 and blocked any US transactions.

Bout has repeatedly maintained that he operated legitimate businesses and acted as a mere logistics provider. He is believed to be in his 50s, with his age in dispute because of different passports and documents.

Viktor Bout is pictured in a temporary cell ahead of a hearing at a court in Bangkok in August 2010. Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images

“His early days are a mystery,” Douglas Farah, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center who co-authored a book on Bout, told CNN in 2010.

Farah told Mother Jones magazine in 2007 that according to his multiple passports, Bout was born in 1967 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the son of a bookkeeper and an auto mechanic. He said that Bout graduated from the Military Institute on Foreign Languages, a well-known feeder school for Russian military intelligence.

“He was a Soviet officer, most likely a lieutenant, who simply saw the opportunities presented by three factors that came with the collapse of the USSR and the state sponsorship that entailed: abandoned aircraft on the runways from Moscow to Kiev, no longer able to fly because of the lack of money for fuel or maintenance; huge stores of surplus weapons that were guarded by guards suddenly receiving little or no salary; and the booming demand for those weapons from traditional Soviet clients and newly emerging armed groups from Africa to the Philippines,” Farah told the magazine.

Bout has said that he worked as a military officer in Mozambique. Others have said it was actually Angola, where Russia had a large military presence at the time, Farah told CNN. He first became known when the United Nations began investigating him in the early-to-mid 1990s and the United States began to get involved.

Bout – who reportedly has used names including “Victor Anatoliyevich Bout,” “Victor But,” “Viktor Butt,” “Viktor Bulakin” and “Vadim Markovich Aminov” – is thought to have been the inspiration for the arms-dealer character played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie “Lord of War.”

In 2002, CNN’s Jill Dougherty met with Bout in Moscow. She asked him about allegations against him – did he sell arms to the Taliban? To al Qaeda? Did he supply rebels in Africa and get paid in blood diamonds? – and he denied each claim.

“It’s a false allegation and it’s a lie,” he said. “I’ve never touched diamonds in my life and I’m not a diamond guy and I don’t want that business.”

“I’m not afraid,” he told Dougherty. “I didn’t do anything in my life I should be afraid of.”

A device that can turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun ...

CNN —

The number of shootings involving automatic weapons in the US has skyrocketed in recent years, suggesting a troubling resurgence in the use of machine guns by criminals, according to an analysis provided exclusively to CNN.

Incidents of machine gun fire have exploded by about 1,400% from 2019 through last year, according to statistics compiled by a gunfire detection company that has acoustic sensors placed in about 130 US cities. Last year alone, ShotSpotter, Inc. detected roughly 5,600 incidents of automatic weapons fire, the analysis showed.

The previously unreported figures add to growing evidence that the widespread availability of inexpensive so-called conversion devices – known as “auto switches” or “auto sears” – capable of transforming semi-automatic weapons into machine guns in a matter of moments are wreaking havoc on American streets.

There has been a corresponding spike in seizures of conversion devices by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in recent years, from fewer than 100 in 2017 to more than 1,500 last year.

CNN earlier reported on an ATF effort in 2019 to recover what agents suspected were thousands of such devices illegally imported from China. In the years since, 3D printers have only added to the problem, law enforcement officials said.

“Not since Prohibition have we seen this many machine guns being used to commit crimes,” said Tom Chittum, who spent more than two decades with the ATF and retired as its No. 2 official before signing on as an executive with ShotSpotter earlier this year.

Gun laws virtually eliminated automatic weapons from city streets for decades, Chittum said. “But now machine guns are back, and they’re everywhere.”

Automatic weapons have been used in several high-profile assaults in recent years, including a mass shooting in Sacramento, California, in which six people were killed and a dozen injured, a school shooting in Washington, DC, in which a sniper with automatic rifles unleashed a barrage of more than 200 shots, wounding four, and the slaying of Houston police officer William “Bill” Jeffrey during the service of an arrest warrant last year. The 30-year-veteran officer died in a torrent of gunfire from a convicted felon armed with an illegally converted weapon.

The scene of a mass shooting is blocked off with police tape on April 3, 2022 in Sacramento, California. Liu Guanguan/China News Service/Getty Images

A CNN review of court filings in cities across the US found dozens of cases in recent years involving so-called conversion devices or semi-automatic handguns already converted to fully automatic.

In Chicago, a man prosecutors called “a prolific machine gun dealer” allegedly continued to sell the devices while out on bond and awaiting trial. An alleged associate of the man was recorded telling an undercover ATF agent posing as a buyer that he’d get a better price if he bought in bulk, and that he should act quickly because demand was high.

“People are gonna get them switches,” he told the agent, according to a court filing. “It’s gonna go to the people who want to go shoot some people, gangbangers and sh*t.”

The devices appear to be an emerging commodity on the black market. CNN reviewed cases in which they were allegedly hawked on social media, sold under the table by a licensed gun dealer in Miami, and turned up in the possession of alleged drug dealers distributing methamphetamine, fentanyl and oxycodone. In Los Angeles, a man under investigation for supplying local gang members with guns allegedly sold an ATF informant a Glock conversion device along with a Glock 9mm pistol and a high-capacity magazine. In Washington, DC, investigators looking into a young man who allegedly tossed a converted handgun into a trash can as police approached later found several videos on YouTube in which he rapped about “switches.”

The increasing availability of auto switches has been driven in part by the ease with which they can be made using cheap, 3D-printed parts and instructions available online, according to Earl Griffith, the chief of ATF’s Firearms and Ammunition Technology Division.

“It’s very easy,” said Griffith, who explained how he learned to use a 3D printer to make the devices on YouTube. “In a matter of 15 minutes I was able to do it myself the first time.” Below, Griffith explains.

A CNN review of YouTube based on key-word search terms revealed multiple such videos that had collectively racked up more than 1 million views. One group of auto-switch instructional videos that remained online until August were linked to a man charged in December by federal prosecutors in Texas for allegedly making, possessing and transferring 3D-printed switches. He has pleaded not guilty.

YouTube removed the videos after CNN asked about them. A company spokesperson said YouTube does not allow “content instructing viewers how to manufacture accessories that convert a firearm to automatic fire, or to sell those accessories on our platform.”

Griffith said that despite the growing ubiquity of the devices, many members of law enforcement do not know how to recognize them on firearms they seize from criminals.

“When we tell them about it, they go back into their evidence vault and they look and check and they find this stuff,” he said.

“Not since Prohibition have we seen this many machine guns being used to commit crimes.”

Quantifying incidents involving automatic weapons fire is a challenge. The shell casings fired by automatic weapons appear no different than those discharged from a semi-automatic gun.

That is where ShotSpotter comes in. The company has contracts with about 130 cities in which it installs acoustic sensors in designated areas to listen for gunfire. A patented computer algorithm attempts to distinguish between innocuous sounds such a jackhammer or car backfiring and gunfire. Human analysts at the company’s headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area or a satellite office in Washington, DC, listen to what the algorithm flags as gunfire and, if they concur, alert police. The company says its goal is to make such notifications within a minute.

In recent years, suspected incidents of automatic weapons fire have risen sharply from about 400 in 2019 to 1,800 in 2020 to 5,600 last year. Even after adjusting for an increase in the company’s coverage area in the US, ShotSpotter said an internal analysis showed that suspected automatic gunfire incidents jumped 14 times in about three years. The upward trend has continued in the first half of this year with roughly 3,800 incidents detected. The company says its designation of an incident as “full auto” is for a police department’s “situational awareness” only and is not guaranteed in the same manner as its primary mission of accurately identifying and locating outdoor gunfire.

During a demonstration of the system in June, analyst Kaylan Parker replayed some of the incidents she and others had tagged as “full auto,” filling her Washington, DC, listening post with audio from what sounded like some far-off war zone. On a recent day, she said, the company had detected what it determined to be more than 25 incidents of automatic weapons fire, involving some 300 rounds, including a shooting in nearby Baltimore. Baltimore police later issued a press release about the incident, citing the ShotSpotter alert and stating that two people were wounded, including a 14-year-old boy.

Founded in 1996, ShotSpotter bills itself as an important tool for police, providing real-time information about the location and nature of shootings, which the company says often go unreported. The early intel, company officials say, provides a tactical advantage to police and has resulted in both the arrest of shooters and faster medical care for gunshot victims.

But ShotSpotter, a publicly traded company with reported revenue last year of nearly $60 million, has been mired in controversy in recent years. The criticism is centered on the placement of its sensors in predominately minority communities and the use of its information as evidence in court cases as opposed to its primary mission of merely alerting police to the occurrence and location of gunfire. Critics see the placement of the sensors as racially biased, resulting in the increased use of stop-and-frisk tactics by police. Defense attorneys have assailed ShotSpotter’s results as both unreliable and impossible to scrutinize because the company has declined to disclose the precise science behind how its system works. Other critics have questioned ShotSpotter’s true value as a crime-fighting tool, regardless of how well it detects and locates gunfire, because they say there’s no compelling evidence that it reduces gun violence.

ShotSpotter, which touts a 97% accuracy rate – a figure backed by an audit paid for by the company – has pushed back against the criticism with a prominent link on its website. It cites studies it says are “proof of its positive impact” and says the location of its sensors is decided in consultation with police and city officials in the communities it serves and is “based on historical gunfire and homicide data.”

“Machine guns are back, and they’re everywhere.”

A case winding its way through federal court in Washington, DC, highlights both the utility of ShotSpotter, and the challenges prosecutors sometimes face when trying to use its information as evidence in court.

Early on the morning of January 20, 2020, ShotSpotter notified police in Washington, DC, of gunfire at a house in the city’s southeast quadrant. Police later discovered that footage from a surveillance camera mounted nearby showed a man firing a weapon into the air at 4:45 a.m., the precise time of the ShotSpotter alert, according to court records.

After obtaining a search warrant, police found a twice-convicted PCP dealer alone in the house. They also seized a Glock .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun equipped with a conversion device, and an extended magazine, from a closet, according to prosecutors. The occupant of the house was arrested and charged with possession of a machine gun.

It might appear an open-and-shut case for the efficacy of ShotSpotter. But the use of the company’s information as evidence in court has been another matter.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the case have been battling for months over who is qualified to provide expert testimony regarding ShotSpotter’s findings and address questions big and small about the company, from the science behind how its system works to an explanation of how the estimate of the number of shots fired changed over time in the case at hand.

As of publication, a judge had yet to rule on how the ShotSpotter information would be handled.

In Texas, Lacie Jeffrey, the daughter of the Houston police officer killed last year, said she could not comprehend the proliferation of fully automatic weapons like the one that riddled her father’s body with multiple gunshot wounds in an instant. An autopsy report obtained by CNN shows that the veteran officer was struck more than a dozen times during the brief encounter.

Jeffrey said she has reached out to lawmakers in Texas in hopes of enacting a tougher state law regarding so-called conversion devices like the one on the weapon used to kill her dad.

“We do not live in a war zone,” Jeffrey told CNN. “There is no need for us to have these automatic weapons on the streets of Houston — anywhere in the United States.”

Scott Glover Curt Devine
Scott Glover
Curt Devine

A man allegedly trying to enter a patrol vehicle near Alabama ...

CNN —

A man was shot and killed by police near an Alabama elementary school Thursday afternoon after attempting to take a school resource officer’s gun, authorities said.

At least 34 students were inside Walnut Park Elementary School when the man earlier tried to open two doors leading to the school, Gadsden City School Superintendent Tony Reddick told CNN.

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) is investigating the incident.

In a news release, ALEA said that the individual was seen trying to make forcible entry into a marked Rainbow City, Alabama, patrol vehicle near the school. A resource officer made contact with the man and attempted to stop him, the release said.

An altercation ensued in which the individual resisted and attempted to take the officer’s firearm, authorities said. The officer was able to call for backup and a responding officer shot the individual who was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the release. It is not known if the suspect was armed.

The man was identified Friday as Robert Tyler White, 32, of Bunnlevel, about 20 miles north of Fayetteville.

No children at the school were hurt in the incident, Etowah County Sheriff Jonathan Horton said during a news conference.

Though the school year is over, during the summer, the school has a literacy camp for elementary students, Reddick said.

The district has always had a practice of locking all exterior and interior doors, Reddick said. Something he touted for helping keep the potential intruder out.

“He tried to open at least two doors leading into the school,” Reddick said.

“This is Gadsden. A small-knit community. You don’t think that something like this is going to happen at your school,” he added.

Praising the work of the school resource officer, Horton also highlighted the work the district has done in light of the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

“Our schools, especially after … what’s happened in Texas, we have one of the largest school resource officers programs in Etowah County, preaching that these doors stay locked. That the individual was not able to make it inside the school,” he said.

“From the school resource officer’s standpoint – he did exactly what should be done. He went straight to the threat, he confronted it and he dealt with it. It ended in, unfortunately, the death of the suspect, but that’s the safest alternative. To keep that threat out of that school,” he added.

The school resource officer was transported to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries he sustained during the altercation, Horton said.

Jamiel Lynch Tina Burnside Jarrod Wardwell