New York State Gov. Hochul vows to fight domestic terrorism after Buffalo shooting

Kathy Hochul has promised to fight domestic terrorism after a gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others at a Buffalo supermarket on Wednesday and introduced a plan for tighter gun control.

Hochul said the intersection of two crises led to the shooting: the mainstreaming of hate speech, the easy access to military style weapons and magazines. How many more lives have to be taken too often before we can face the truth? She said something. Hochul said that the New York StateNew York State Police will now have to file for an Extreme Risk Protection Order when they believe an individual is a threat. The police had the option of reporting, according to the current red flag laws in the state.

The governor said she will work with the legislature to pass laws that require police to report gun crimes within 24 hours and require microstamping on semiautomatic pistols sold in New York.

She will work to get legislation passed that bans other weapons designed to fall outside the realm of regulation. Hochul referred the New York State Attorney General to the social media platforms that broadcast the horrific attack in Buffalo and legitimized replacement theory. The attorney general Letitia James said she is launching the investigations.

The governor also announced state units focused on fighting domestic terrorism, which are to coordinate with New York counties and law enforcement. The force will be responsible for flagging extremism on social media.

The 18-year-old suspect in the Buffalo shooting streamed the attack on the Twitch platform, authorities said.

A Twitch spokeswoman said the platform had investigated and confirmed that the stream was removed less than two minutes after the violence started. A document, apparently written by the suspect, Payton S. Gendron, was posted to Google Docs on Thursday night.

The writer claims that he was radicalized on an extremist 4chan forum while he was bored at the beginning of the Pandemic in early 2020. He seems to adhere to replacement theory, a false conspiracy theory that states that white Americans will be replaced with non-white people through immigration, interracial marriage and eventually violence.

The document says Buffalo was targeted because it was the city with the most Black residents that southeastern to the author's residence, and repeatedly references the gunman who killed 51 people and injured dozens of others in the 2019 shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The ADL said the screed by Gendron closely parallels the language in the document written by the Christchurch shooter.

In June, New York State Police investigated Gendron after he threatened to carry out a shooting while he was a high school student, a senior law enforcement official said. The suspect was a minor at the time, the official said. He was brought to a hospital for a mental health evaluation and was not charged with a crime.

His parents said his weapons were legally purchased, according to officials.

Hochul said Wednesday that she hopes that the proposed measures will give leaders a better chance to be in the prevention business instead of just the cleanup business. Gendron was arraigned Saturday night in Buffalo City Court on one count of murder in the first degree, the Erie County District Attorney's Office said.

He was remanded without bail and a felony hearing was scheduled for Thursday morning, according to the office.