Ten people were killed and three injured, police said. NBC News previously spoke of at least seven deaths.
Witnesses at the scene said the gunman entered the supermarket around 2:30 p.m. local time and opened fire on at least eight people. Various media describe the perpetrator as an 18-year-old young man, dressed in a military uniform.
A grocery store employee told local news station Buffalo News how the shooting broke out minutes after he went to the cold store. “I heard shots. Shots and shots and shots,” he said. “I hid. I just hid. I was not going to leave that room.”
A police officer said that when he entered the supermarket it was like “walking into a horror movie”.
According to the newspaper, the gunman was carrying a camera and police are investigating whether he livestreamed his act on the internet. Reports are circulating on social media that he published a manifesto prior to his act calling himself a racist and an anti-Semite. The supermarket is located north of the city in an area where mainly black Americans live.
Mayor Byron Brown said at a press conference that the gunman is not from Buffalo. The suspected assailant allegedly drove for hours before arriving in town “to commit this crime against the people of Buffalo,” Brown said. He spoke of “the worst nightmare a community can face.”
Motorists and local residents are asked to avoid the vicinity of the Tops Market supermarket on Jefferson Avenue.