Before New York massacre, teen had erratic behaviour, made chilling threat

NEW YORK • Last spring, as the end of the academic year approached at Susquehanna Valley High School outside Binghamton in New York state, students were asked for a school project about their plans after graduation.

Payton Gendron, a senior, said he wanted to commit a murder-suicide, said a law enforcement official briefed on the matter.

He claimed to be joking, the official said. But the state police were summoned to investigate and took Gendron, then 17, into custody on June 8 under a state mental health law, police officials said on Sunday.

The teen had a psychiatric evaluation in a hospital but was released within a couple of days, the officials said. Two weeks later, Gendron graduated and fell off investigators' radar.

Last Saturday, he resurfaced 320km away in Buffalo, New York, where authorities say he opened fire at a supermarket in a predominantly black area, killing 10 people and wounding three others in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent US history.

After his rampage, Gendron put his gun to his neck. But two officers persuaded him to drop his weapon and surrender.

He was charged that same day with first-degree murder, and as he awaits his fate in jail, investigators are sifting through his past to piece together how he transformed from a quiet student into an accused killer without drawing more serious scrutiny.

New York state has what is known as a red flag law, under which people found to be a danger can be forced to surrender their guns, but no one tried to invoke it against Gendron. State police said he had not named a specific target in his threat to kill someone.

But the killings came after what former classmates said was a pattern of increasingly bizarre behaviour by Gendron. Two former classmates said he showed up to class in hazmat gear after coronavirus pandemic curbs were lifted in 2020.

"He wore the entire suit, boots, gloves, everything," Mr Nathan Twitchell, 19, said as he stood on his porch in Binghamton, shaking his head. "Everyone was just staring at him."

That was one of the few times students saw Gendron, said Ms Cassaundra Williams, another student at the high school. Ms Williams, 19, said Gendron favoured online coursework even as his classmates returned to campus.

"He was always very quiet and never much said anything," said Ms Williams, who added that Gendron was book smart but had grown more reclusive over the years since she met him in elementary school.

"We were just so shocked. We can't even wrap our heads around it still," she said of the killings.

Gendron's mother did not respond to a message left on Sunday afternoon. Nor did the lawyer who represented Gendron at his arraignment, Mr Brian Parker.

Ms Williams said the last time she saw Gendron was at graduation. She said she was shocked when a friend texted her after the shooting to tell her that Gendron had been arrested.

"He was just a quiet, smart kid that I wouldn't think would be able to do anything like what he did yesterday," said Mr Twitchell. "It just blows my mind."

Mr Kolton Gardner, 18, who attended middle school and high school with Gendron, described him as "definitely a little bit of an outcast".

"He just wasn't that social," Mr Gardner said. "I knew he had an interest in guns, but where we grew up that wasn't uncommon. That's just kind of the thing in rural New York, people like guns."

NYTIMES