The latest on the Buffalo supermarket mass shooting

People lay their hands on Deazjah Roseboro, 12, as she comforts her cousin, Jerney Moss, 8, following a mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, NY, on Sunday, May 15.

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 in early March, police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Monday.

Officials had previously said the suspect, who is from Conklin, about 200 miles away, arrived in Buffalo on Friday for the first time to scout out the Tops Friendly Markets store in a predominantly Black neighborhood. However, Gramaglia updated that timeline as he described the investigation into the suspect’s extensive “digital footprint.”

“Information has also come as a result of some of this investigation that the individual was here a few months ago, back in early March,” Gramaglia said.

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.

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.

Here’s what we know so far about the attack:

About the attack: Gramaglia said the suspect drove to the store around 2:30 p.m. ET. Wearing tactical gear, he shot four people in the parking lot, Gramaglia said, and then went inside the store, where a security guard engaged him. The suspect shot and killed the guard and then “continued to work his way through the store,” Gramaglia said.

The victims: A retired police lieutenant. A substitute teacher who was a “pillar of the community.” A beloved grandmother of six. A dedicated community activist. They were among the 10 people killed in the shooting. Thirteen people, ages 20 to 86, were shot. Eleven were Black and two were White, Buffalo police said.

The investigation: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN Monday that the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime, but declined to call it a domestic terrorist attack. “With respect to the tragic events of this past Saturday, it is being investigated, as the FBI articulated, as a hate crime,” Mayorkas told CNN’s Jeremy Diamond. “The term domestic terrorism is a legal term, and because the investigation is ongoing, I won’t — I won’t employ that term.”

Federal prosecutors are working to bring charges against the shooting suspect law enforcement officials said. Those charges are expected in the coming days, and would be in addition to state charges. The suspect was charged with first-degree murder Saturday. He has pleaded not guilty.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Saturday said the Justice Department was investigating the attack as a “hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism.” It’s unclear if the Justice Department would be able to seek the federal death penalty — as that depends on what charges are brought. At a news conference on Saturday, US Attorney Trini Ross was asked about the possibility of federal charges and the death penalty being sought, and she responded, “All options are on the table as we go forward with the investigation.”

The shooting suspect’s racist statement: A 180-page diatribe attributed to the shooting suspect, which posted online just before the deadly rampage, shows in chilling detail the meticulous planning that apparently went into the racist massacre. 

Alongside tirades about his false belief that White Americans were being “replaced” by people of other races, the 18-year-old suspect allegedly included in the writing a hand-drawn map of the store he targeted, a minute-by-minute plan of the deadly attack, and pages upon pages listing the equipment and clothing he planned to wear – from military-style body armor down to the brand of his underwear.

What happens next: President Biden and the first lady are scheduled to visit Buffalo on Tuesday and meet with the families of the shooting victims, first responders and community leaders.

CNN’s Alisha Ebrahimji, Dakin Andone and Amir Vera contributed reporting to this post.

Read more here.

Video filmed during the deadly rampage inside the Tops Friendly Markets store shows the Buffalo shooting suspect pointing his rifle at a person on the ground but not shooting him.

The video, obtained by CNN, is taken from the point of view of the suspect after he fired at several people. In it, the suspect 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 suspect says “Sorry” and then turns away and continues walking down the aisle of cash registers. 

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

The video clip that CNN has obtained ends at that point.

Merrick Garland, US Attorney General, speaks during an event at the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday.

Federal prosecutors are working to bring charges against the man who allegedly carried out the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, law enforcement officials said.

Those charges are expected in the coming days, and would be in addition to state charges. The suspect was charged with first degree murder Saturday. He has pleaded not guilty.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Saturday said the Justice Department was investigating the attack as a “hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism.”

It’s unclear if the Justice Department would be able to seek the federal death penalty — as that depends on what charges are brought.

At a news conference on Saturday, US Attorney Trini Ross was asked about the possibility of federal charges and the death penalty being sought, and she responded, “All options are on the table as we go forward with the investigation.”

Garland, who has put a temporary hold on federal executions while the department reviews policies and procedures, would have to make a decision on whether to seek the death penalty.

New York has effectively done away with the death penalty.

Former classmates of the Buffalo shooting suspect said while the suspect could sometimes be a loner and “odd,” he wasn’t known to be violent.

“I just can’t believe he would do something like that,” Nicholas Albrechta, who graduated from Susquehanna Valley High last year told CNN. “Never heard him thinking of anything like that.” 

Albrechta described the suspect, Payton S. Gendron, as “chill” and said he was a good person to do class projects with. He said the suspect could occasionally be talkative but that some days he kept to himself. He said he hadn’t seen the suspect since graduation last year.

Another classmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, remembered the suspect as a “loner” who was interested guns and video games, though the classmate added that that wasn’t uncommon among their peers.

“Didn’t hear anything bad about him once,” said another former classmate, Bryce Gibbs, who said he attended elementary through high school with the suspect and described him as “nice.” “I just don’t understand what convinced him to do this,” he said.

Yet another classmate characterized the suspect as “a bit of an odd kid. But I never thought he’d do something that messed up.”

The news has shocked others who have known his family. His 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 co-worker, who said she was heartbroken for the victims’ families as well as the suspect’s parents, Pam and Paul. “I can’t wrap my head around this tragedy.”

Another co-worker described the suspect’s father as “a lovely guy. Smart, works hard for the state as [an] engineer for the DOT.” “He is a very liberal person similar to myself and what I have heard about his son are not his beliefs,” the coworker said.

Law enforcement officials in Buffalo are hearing about “a lot” of threats since the mass shooting at Tops grocery store on Saturday, according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn.

During a news conference, Flynn said in one case a 52-year-old man called a pizzeria Sunday afternoon making threatening comments while referencing what happened at the supermarket.  

About 45 minutes later the man called a brewery in Buffalo making similar threats. According to Flynn, the man was arrested, charged with a class D felony, and faces up to seven years in jail.

“So let this case send a message out there to any tough guy or anyone who wants to be cute out there in sending messages or threatening anyone or putting anything on social media,” Flynn said. “I will find you, and I will arrest you, and I will prosecute you.”

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said the Buffalo shooting suspect’s defense attorney request for a mental health forensic examination has been withdrawn.

According to Erie County Sheriff John Garcia, the suspect remains on suicide watch.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia confirmed Monday that the suspect in the shooting was in Buffalo a few months ago in March.

Gramaglia went on to say that “this is a very long investigation.” 

“There’s a lot of digital footprint, electronics we’ll have to go through. So that process is ongoing,” he added.

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said that suspect has “only been charged right now with one charge.” Flynn noted that the defendant is “innocent until proven guilty.” 

Some more context: The suspect was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge Saturday and was previously investigated in June 2021 for making a “generalized threat” while he attended high school, officials said.

The man accused of killing 10 people in a racist mass shooting Saturday at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket had plans to continue his shooting rampage and kill more Black people, authorities said Monday.

“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 earlier on Monday. “He’d even spoken about possibly going to another store.”

Tamika Harper, niece of Buffalo shooting victim Geraldine Talley, told CNN that she is feeling “angry” after Saturday’s deadly rampage. The woman said she feels like their hearts were “just ripped out of our bodies.”

Harper described how she went to the supermarket right after the shooting occurred, and found out her aunt was in in the building during the event shortly after arriving on the scene.

“I proceeded to come to Tops. On my way here there was a police car that came — pulled up behind them. ‘Oh, gosh, like why is he pulling me over.’ So, I pulled over thinking I was being pulled over, and he sped past me … So, I continued to come here. And when I got here, I seen police, firefighters, ambulance, I’m like, ‘oh, my God, what is going on?’ So as I’m saying that, my daughter-in-law said, ‘It’s an active shooting at Tops right now.’ And I said, ‘What?’ So as soon as she said that, I got a call from my mom, and my mom was crying, and I said, ‘Mom, I’m good, I’m okay. I didn’t make it to the store. I never even went in there yet,’” Harper told CNN.

Kaye Johnson, also a niece of Talley, said she feels “completely devastated.”

“Every time I close my eyes, I just imagine what my aunt’s last thoughts was. She didn’t get a chance to think, blink, nothing. This is just devastating. All the families that lost,” Johnson said.

Watch the full interview here:

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previewed President Biden’s Tuesday trip to Buffalo, New York, to meet with individuals impacted by a recent mass shooting at a grocery store over the weekend.

Jean-Pierre began her first briefing as press secretary by recognizing the victims of the shooting and first responders.

“We recognize their lives today and those lost (and affected) by gun violence this weekend in Houston, in Southern California, Milwaukee and communities across the country,” she said. “And we honor the bravery of those in law enforcement who responded quickly and with professionalism in Buffalo and who risk their lives every day to protect and serve their communities.”

She named each of the victims killed in the shooting, recognizing their roles in the community, and describing how they were each remembered by their family members.

She said of Celestine Chaney: “Celestine had been visiting her sister and they went to the supermarket because she wanted to get strawberries to make shortcakes, which she loved.” 

Jean-Pierre said Ruth Whitfield was on her way to visit a nursing home “as she did each day and she stopped at the supermarket to buy some groceries.”

And she said Heyward Patterson “worked as a driver who gave rides to residents to and from the grocery store and would help with their groceries.”

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown took a moment to address the Buffalo mass shooting — calling the shooting “senseless” and a “stain in our country” during a press conference on the state’s upcoming wildfires.

“This senseless act fueled by racism and domestic terrorism is a stain on our country,” Brown said.

She offered her thoughts and prayers to those affected by the shooting.

Federal officials hosted a conference call with law enforcement nationwide on Sunday, one day after a gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, according to sources familiar with the call.

One source told CNN the call lasted 30 minutes and sought to inform state and local law enforcement officials about the details of the Buffalo case, including the timeline of when the gunman acquired his weapons and how the suspect ended up at that location.

The source noted the call was designed to ensure law enforcement officials were familiar with the case so they can help spot possible plans of copycat attacks.

The source stressed that reporting any intelligence to federal authorities who track incidents and threats is critical to developing patterns that can then be shared to the wider law enforcement community.

Katherine Massey.

Katherine Massey, one of the victims killed in Saturday’s supermarket shooting in Buffalo, was an advocate who fought to make sure community members had access to resources, her friend, Betty Jean Grant, told CNN’s New Day.

Grant told CNN she developed a friendship with Massey, 72, about 20 years ago when she was working for a legislator and Massey was a city advocate.

A year ago, Massey wrote a letter to the editor of The Buffalo News urging federal action to prevent needless shooting deaths, Grant said.

Massey wrote for two local papers, she said.

“There needs to be extensive federal action/legislation to address all aspects of the issue,” Massey wrote in the May 30, 2021, letter. “Current pursued remedies mainly inspired by mass killings – namely, universal background checks and banning assault weapons – essentially exclude the sources of our city’s gun problems. Illegal handguns, via out of state gun trafficking, are the primary culprits.”

Homeownership, gentrification and the increase in gun violence in Buffalo pushed Massey to keep moving forward with her advocacy work, Grant said.

Massey lived in the home she was born and raised in and is survived by her sister and her brother, she said.

Ruth Whitfield.

Attorneys for the family of Buffalo shooting victim Ruth Whitfield are planning legal action on behalf of her family, attorney Ben Crump said at a news conference in Buffalo on Monday.  

Crump called the shooting “an act of domestic terrorism” and said those who radicalized the White supremacist who committed the shooting are accomplices that should be held accountable.  

“What happened on Saturday was an act of domestic terrorism and we have to define it as such. We can’t sugar coat it, we can’t try to explain it away talking about mental illness – no. This was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by a young White supremacist,” Crump said. “These people who are accomplices to this mass murder and…even though they may not have pulled the trigger, they did load the gun for this young White supremacist … and we have to hold them accountable too.” 

Co-counsel Terry Connors said Monday that multiple law firms plan to do “root cause analysis” to determine what factors led to the shooter’s radicalization and pursue appropriate legal action.

“Once the fact pattern gets defined, we’ll be able to determine exactly what the theories are and can go forward,” Connors said. 

Ken Abbarno, another attorney working on the case, said they also plan to examine the Sandy Hook v. Remington case, where families of the Sandy Hook school shooting were able to hold gun manufacturer Remington and its insurers accountable for their role in the 2012 massacre that left 20 children and six adults dead in Newtown, Connecticut. He said his legal team would be looking at similarities between the two shootings and would determine whether any similar legal action can be filed in their case.

Throughout his remarks on Monday, Crump also implored lawmakers multiple times to immediately pass legislation to combat hate crimes against Black Americans. 

“We have to show the world that we are better than this … Black America is suffering right now,” Crump said. “Ruth Whitfield was a person of love and we won’t let this act of hate define this person of love.” 

Earlier Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN that the Buffalo shooting is being investigated as a hate crime, but declined to call it a domestic terrorist attack.

“With respect to the tragic events of this past Saturday, it is being investigated, as the FBI articulated, as a hate crime,” Mayorkas said. “The term domestic terrorism is a legal term, and because the investigation is ongoing, I won’t — I won’t employ that term.”

CNN’s Tanika Gray contributed reporting to this post.

On Saturday afternoon, an anonymous user on the online forum 4chan wrote, “just 20 mins ago I just witnessed a mass shooting at a tops supermarket live on twitch with like 20 other viewers.” 

The hate-filled forum 4chan, where all users post anonymously, appears to be at the center of the made-for-the-internet massacre that took place in a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday — from discussion on the platform apparently helping inspire the alleged attacker to spreading the gruesome video of the shooting.  

A 180-page document that has been attributed to the man suspected of the shooting, in which 10 people were killed, references how he was influenced by what he saw on 4chan, including how he was inspired by watching a video of the 2019 mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand — which were also streamed live.  

Ben Decker, the CEO of Memetica, a threat analysis company, told CNN, “this is a step-by-step copycat attack of Christchurch, in both the real-world attack; planning and selecting the target, and online; coordinating the livestream and manifesto dissemination across fringe message boards.” 

4chan, which was created in 2003, claims it receives 22 million unique visitors a month, half of whom it says are in the United States. 

While the site hosts forums on a variety of topics — including video games, memes and anime — and says it has rules against racism, its lax approach to content moderation means that hate speech not allowed by more mainstream platforms spreads more freely on 4chan.

4chan is part of the internet’s Wild West. While Big Tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter at least try to police their sites, almost anything goes on 4chan. Some parts of its forums are almost exclusively dedicated to the sharing of racist and antisemitic memes and tropes.  

A similar site, 8kun — which was originally called 8chan, and was spun out of 4chan when that forum banned the movement known as Gamergate — has been linked to other atrocities. 

Immediately following the Buffalo shooting, some users on 4chan did not discuss the horrific loss of human life but instead shared methods for re-uploading the shooting video so it could be seen by more people.  

Twitch, the Amazon-owned service on which the shooter had livestreamed part of the attack, said it removed the video for violating its policies two minutes after the violence in the video began. The actual live stream itself had only been seen by a small number of people, perhaps as few as 20 or so, according to screenshots that have circulated of the stream. 

4channers who had apparently screen-recorded the live stream discussed tactics for re-uploading the video to other sites, and services that could be used to hide their identity as they did so.  

By Sunday, copies of the video were circulating across the internet. Some of those copies were reportedly viewed millions of times.  

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter banned the sharing of the video on their sites, but the companies were clearly struggling Sunday to contain its spread.  

We don’t have statistics for the Buffalo video yet, but in the 24 hours after the Christchurch shooting, Facebook said it removed 1.5 million copies of the shooter’s video.  

The preservation and sharing of these videos by far-right communities on 4chan and other fringe message boards can help inspire further bloodshed, according to Decker — as evidenced by what the Buffalo suspect wrote in his alleged document. 

CNN has reached out to 4chan for comment. 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Sunday a partnership with rideshare services Uber and Lyft to provide rides to and from local grocery stores for affected community members following Saturday’s shooting.

The supermarket is in a so-called “food desert” — where access to fresh foods and groceries is limited — and “served as the lone supermarket within walking distance for many Buffalonians,” Hochul said.

In another statement, Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin said “we stand with our Buffalo community and by helping our impacted neighbors get to and from nearby grocery stores, we hope we can ease the pain and burden of this terrible tragedy.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, speaks during a news conference at the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN Monday that a racist mass shooting Saturday that left 10 dead in Buffalo is being investigated as a hate crime, but declined to call it a domestic terrorist attack.

The Department of Homeland Security chief, who was participating in a briefing marking six years of the administration’s bipartisan infrastructure law at the White House, instead touted efforts from DHS “to battle domestic, violent extremism, which we have identified since last year as one of the most significant terrorism-related threats to the security of the homeland.”

“We in the Department of Homeland Security, in partnership with the FBI, have issued an unprecedented number of information bulletins and alerts to stat, local, tribal, territorial officials who are on the frontlines, to equip them to identify when an individual is descending into violence by reason of an ideology of hate or false narrative,” Mayorkas said.

“We have dedicated grant funds, additional grant funds for the first time in our grant programs, identifying domestic violent extremism as a national priority area — we have distributed those funds at an increased level in an unprecedented way. We created the Center for Prevention Programs in partnership to equip and empower local communities to address the threat within their respective jurisdictions,” he said.

“This is a high appropriate priority area and we’re executing on the President’s national strategy to battle domestic violent extremism,” he added.

Garnell Whitfield Jr., former Buffalo fire commissioner and son of shooting victim Ruth Whitfield, said Monday that their father, Garnell Whitfield Sr., still does not know that his wife has died.

Whitfield Jr., speaking alongside his family members at a news conference with their attorneys on Monday, said that his father has been living in a nursing home for the past eight years and that his 86-year-old mother, Ruth, visited him every single day. They were married for 68 years.  

Whitfield Jr. said he and his family members are struggling to figure out how to tell their father that their mother died at the hands of a White supremacist. 

“He doesn’t know. What do we tell him? How do we tell him the love of his life, his primary caretaker, the person who kept him alive for the last eight years, how do we tell him that she’s gone? Not just that she’s gone, but she’s gone at the hands of a White supremacist, of a terrorist, of an evil person, who’s allowed to live among us?” Whitfield Jr. said. 

Whitfield Jr. also expressed his anger at the situation, calling out elected officials for their lack of protection. 

“We make no apologies for our suffering and our pain — you can see it. We’re not going to apologize for that. But we’re not just hurting. We’re angry, we’re mad. This shouldn’t have happened. We do our best to be good citizens, to be good people. We believe in God. We trust him. We treat people with decency. And love even our enemies,” he said.

“And you expect us to keep doing this over and over and over again…forgive and forget, while the people we elect and trust in offices around this country do their best not to protect us, not to consider us equal, not to love us back. What are we supposed to do with all of this anger, with all of this pain?” Whitfield Jr. asked.

Whitfield was a mother of four children, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother, said family attorney Ben Crump. Two of her daughters, as well as a granddaughter, also spoke Monday about their love for their lost loved one. Raymond Whitfield, a younger son of Ruth and Garnell Sr., echoed his brother’s sentiments and said they were proud of their heritage, despite experiencing unequal treatment. 

“How dare you not see us as American? We stand here on the blood, sweat, and tears of our ancestors, and she [Ruth] taught us to be proud of that fact, okay? She was unapologetically an African American princess,” Raymond Whitfield said, calling his family, “broken-hearted.” 

Whitfield Jr. continued by saying that it was a difficult decision for him and is family to speak publicly about their loss, saying they are typically a private family. However, they decided to speak out in order to honor their mother and hopefully contribute to positive change. 

“What I remember most about my mom, what I love most about my mom is how she loved us, how she loved our family, unconditionally. How she sacrificed everything for us, how she gave of herself when she had nothing else to give, she willingly did that for us. And for her to be taken from us and taken from this world, by someone that [is] just full of hate, for no reason…is very hard for us to handle right now,” Whitfield Jr. said.

“This is not just some story to drive the news cycle, this is our mother. This is our lives. We need help. We’re asking you to help us…this can’t keep happening,” he continued.

CNN’s Tanika Gray contributed reporting to this post.

The Buffalo shooting suspect was visited last year by New York State Police after he turned in a high school project about murder-suicides, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said.

A judge on Saturday ordered the suspect to undergo a mental health evaluation.

Speaking to CNN’s Victor Blackwell on Monday, Garcia said, “Obviously somebody that commits a crime so horrific — 10 people dead, three others injured — and with his manifesto, with his hatred, his hatred at the age of 18 towards Black people.” 

Garcia said the suspect’s alleged mental health issues “were brought to light” last year when he did a high school post-graduation project about murder-suicide. 

“The state police arrived at his house at that point last year,” Garcia 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.” 

“Where were the red flags for him to be able to purchase these guns legally?” Garcia asked. “But in a case like this, the gun dealer was able to sell these weapons to this individual because there was no red flags that came up.”

The Susquehanna Valley Central School District in Conklin, New York, on Monday said the suspect made an “ominous” reference to murder-suicide through a virtual learning platform June 2021 while attending Susquehanna Valley High School.

Though the threat was not specific – and did not involve any other students — the instructor immediately informed an administrator who escalated the matter to New York State Police, a spokesperson told CNN. 

“The state police arrived at his house at that point last year,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia told CNN Monday. “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.” 

Beau Duffy, a spokesperson for the New York State Police, said that “troopers transported the student to the hospital for a mental health evaluation.” Duffy added that it was not an involuntary commitment that would have precluded the suspect from purchasing a weapon.

The school spokesperson said they are limited in what we can share about the alleged shooter due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. 

Celestine Chaney.

Celestine Chaney, 65, a grandmother to six children, was one of the most loving and caring people with a genuine spirit and above all, a fighter, her grandson, Wayne Jones Jr., told CNN.

Jones, 27, had planned to surprise his grandmother Sunday with flowers, perfume, a meal and some quality time together since he had to work on Mother’s Day.

Chaney beat breast cancer a few years ago and battled brain tumors when Jones was younger, he said, adding that she always fought her way through her health complications.

“The whole family is devastated,” he said. “And it’s just a shock … you never expect something like this to happen to you … you just pray for everybody else with the trauma that they went through and now you’re living in it.”

Jones said his grandmother played a pivotal role in his and his siblings’ upbringing.

There was “never a dull moment” when she was around, he said, adding that she was always laughing.

“Your world is just shaken up,” Jones said, “And it’s just hard to get back to reality because the reality of it is my grandmother just passed and others lost their lives over nonsense, over nothing, basically because of the color of their skin.”

In the wake of Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, Big Tech platforms are struggling to stop the spread of a video of the attack filmed by the suspect and a document allegedly also produced by him where he outlines his beliefs. 

Platforms have tried to improve how they respond to the sharing of this kind of content since the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, which was also streamed live online.In the 24 hours after that attack, Facebook said it removed 1.5 million copies of the video.

Part of the challenge facing platforms now is what appears to be users posting a deluge of copies of the Buffalo video and document. 

The attack was streamed live on Twitch, a video streaming service owned by Amazon that is particularly popular with gamers. Twitch said it removed the video two minutes after the violence started, but the video had already been downloaded by other users. 

The video has since been shared across major social media platforms and also posted to more obscure video hosting sites. 

Spokespersons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit all told CNN that they had banned the sharing of the video on their sites and are working to identify and remove copies of it. But the companies appear to be struggling to contain the spread. 

CNN observed a link to a copy of the video circulating on Facebook on Sunday night. Facebook included a warning that the link violated its community standards but still allowed users to click through and watch the video. 

The Washington Post reported a link to another copy of the video had been shared 46,000 times on Facebook before it was removed. 

That video was hosted on a less well-known video service called Streamable and was only removed after it had reportedly been viewed more than 3 million times.  

A spokesperson for Streamable told CNN the company was “working diligently” to remove copies of the video “expeditiously.” The spokesperson did not respond when asked how one video had reached millions of views before it was removed.  

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, on Saturday designated the event as a “terrorist attack,” which triggered the company’s internal teams to identify and remove the account of the suspect, as well as to begin removing copies of the video and document and links to them on other sites, according to a company spokesperson. 

The company added the video and document to an internal database that helps automatically detect and remove copies if they are reuploaded. Meta has also banned content that praises or supports the attacker, the spokesperson said.