(NewsGlobal.com)- Just before the murder of ten people in Buffalo, N.Y., the suspect invited individuals to a Discord chatroom in Saturday’s mass shooting.
The Washington Post got a copy of suspected gunman Payton Gendron’s invitation to a private server, headed “Happening: This is not a drill,” just before he shot 13 people at a Tops grocery store.
According to a source acquainted with the situation, 15 people entered the room, leading detectives to investigate if internet pals urged Gendron.
Authorities discovered shortly after the shooting that the suspect had live-streamed the incident on Twitch, indicating that more people could view the shooting than previously thought.
According to the Washington Post, a study of the shooter’s Discord server reveals a lot of racist communications and planning for the mass killing that dates back six months.
A Discord official said that what they know at this time is that the suspect set up a secret, invite-only site to function as a personal journal conversation log. A small number of users were invited to the server and joined it about 30 minutes before the attack.
According to the spokeswoman, the company’s “deepest sympathy” go out to the families and victims of the incident.
“Hate has no place on Discord,” the statement said, “and we are dedicated to combatting violence and extremism.”
Gendron is accused of spreading racial conspiracy theories and driving for hours to carry out the shooting in a primarily Black community. Eleven of the thirteen victims were African-American.
Sheriff John Garcia of Erie County has described the shooting as a “straight-up racially motivated hate crime.”
According to the source, authorities have no idea what the 15 Discord members who accepted the shooter’s invitation did after joining his server.
On Wednesday, Discord released a statement stating that they cooperate with the investigation.
