The Buffalo shooting suspect could face domestic terrorism charges, the district attorney handling the case says

• The Buffalo shooting suspect may face possible domestic terrorism charges, the local DA's office said.
• The Erie County DA's office is "looking into a potential charge of Domestic Act of Terrorism Motivated by Hate," a spokesperson said.

The Buffalo, New York, mass shooting suspect may face possible domestic terrorism charges, the local district attorney's office prosecuting the case told Insider on Monday.

The suspect, identified by police as an 18-year-old white man, has already been charged with first-degree murder in connection to the deadly attack on Saturday at the Tops supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo.

A spokesperson for the Erie County District Attorney's Office told Insider that additional charges, including a domestic terrorism charge, may be filed against the suspect as part of a grand jury investigation.

"Our office is looking into a potential charge of Domestic Act of Terrorism Motivated by Hate," the spokesperson said.

Saturday's grocery store shooting — which has been described by authorities as a "racially motivated hate crime" — left 10 people dead and three others wounded. Eleven of the victims were Black, and two were white, authorities said.

"The next step will be the grand jury aspect of this, so when I get into the grand jury investigation, it's at that stage that I can add on additional charges, which is my plan," Erie County District Attorney John Flynn told CBS News in an interview.

Flynn added, "So the component here dealing with the hate crimes and the domestic terrorism, you know we are finding and gathering new information on that on a minute-by-minute basis."

Buffalo Police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia revealed on Monday that the mass shooting suspect had plans to continue his deadly rampage and target more Black people.

Meanwhile, the US Justice Department is investigating the attack "as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism," Attorney General Merrick Garland said previously in a statement.

Shortly after the mass shooting, many politicians, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, labeled the rampage "white supremacy terrorism" and "domestic terrorism."

Current federal law defines domestic terrorism to include "acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State" and acts that appear to be intended to "intimidate or coerce a civilian population," but there is not a federal law on the books that makes domestic terrorism a federal crime.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also referred to the mass shooting as "domestic terror" in a statement and said that the House would "continue to consider additional measures to strengthen efforts to combat domestic terrorism."

Gloria Browne-Marshall, a constitutional law professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Insider that attacks like the Buffalo mass shooting "should be seen as domestic terrorism."

"It's difficult to apply a law to something when the law doesn't exist," Browne-Marshall said, adding, "There needs to be clear legislation on domestic terrorism, federally, as well as statewide."