18-year-old Buffalo shooting suspect had the N-word painted on the barrel of gun used to kill 10 people, report says

• The suspect in the Buffalo grocery store shooting has been identified as an 18-year-old from New York state.
• His gun had the N-word written on the barrel along with a white supremacist slogan, a report in The Buffalo News said.

An 18-year-old has been identified as the suspect in what authorities describe as a racially motivated mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday that left 10 people dead.

A government official told The Buffalo News that the gunman's semi-automatic gun had the N-word written on the barrel in white paint and the number 14 – a known white supremacist slogan.

"14 Words" is a slogan coined by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order, according to the Anti-Defamation League: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

Officials said they were investigating a 180-page manifesto believed to belong to the shooting suspect, which contained racist and anti-semitic views. It referenced the "replacement theory," which claims that white people are being replaced by people of color, the The New York Times reported.

Unverified screenshots of the manifesto circulated online after the attack, in which the self-proclaimed "white supremacist" author said that they had not grown up in a racist environment but had been radicalized online.

'This very troubled young man'

The 18-year-old lived in Conklin, New York, with his father and mother, both engineers for the New York transit department, according to The Daily Mail.

He had previously been investigated by police, when Susquehanna Valley High School officials said that he had made threats of violence in June 2021, according to The Buffalo News.

"A school official reported that this very troubled young man had made statements indicating that he wanted to do a shooting, either at a graduation ceremony or sometime after," a government official familiar with the case told the paper.

The suspected shooter was investigated by state police and was referred for a mental health evaluation and counseling, according to the official.

He went on to enroll at SUNY Broome Community College but is no longer studying there, a college spokesperson told The Buffalo News. They did not confirm when he was enrolled and when and why he left.

Investigators said that he drove three and a half hours to get to the Tops supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood to carry out the attack on Saturday.

The suspected shooter arrived dressed in heavy tactical gear, and heavy-duty body armor, and live-streamed the shooting on Twitch, according to police.

On Saturday night, the suspect in the shooting appeared in court wearing a mask and white paper gown. He was charged with first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty.