Biden Visits Buffalo After Shooting, Says ‘Evil Will Not Win’

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visit the scene of a shooting at a supermarket to pay respects and speak to families of the victims of Saturday's shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., on May 17, 2022. Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

President Joe Biden went to a city in New York on May 17, visiting where 10 people were gunned down over the weekend.

Biden, joined by First Lady Jill Biden, went to the Tops Market Memorial before meeting with families of those who were killed, law enforcement officers, and others at the Delavan Grider Community Center.

In a speech after the meeting, the president described the final moments of some of the dead, including Celestine Chaney, 65, a brain cancer survivor who went to Tops to buy strawberries to make her favorite shortcake.

Biden said he and his wife brought a message: that in America, “evil will not win.”

“Hate will not prevail. And white supremacy will not have the last word,” he added.

The suspect in the shooting, which also left three injured, was identified as Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white male.

According to a manifesto posted online, Gendron said he chose Buffalo because of strict laws governing gun ownership there and because it has a large black population. He also called the flood of illegal immigration “an invasion” and noted that a number of countries are seeing their white population diminished because of factors such as low birth rates coupled with a rising share of immigrants. Gendron described himself as a white supremacist.

The Erie County DA’s office has confirmed to The Epoch Times that they are investigating the manifesto.

Payton Gendron talks with his attorney during his arraignment in Buffalo City Court in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 14, 2022. Mark Mulville/The Buffalo News via AP

Biden said the attack was domestic terrorism. The suspect, he said, carried out the attack “in the service of hate, and a vicious thirst for power.”

He called on Americans to “reject the lie” that has some people “falsely believing that they will be replaced.”

According to demographers, America is expected to become a minority-majority country in the coming years as the white population lessens and additional immigrants enter the country and have children.

White supremacy “is a poison” that is “running through our body politic,” Biden continued, calling on Americans to join him in saying “that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America.”

Gendron obtained the semi-automatic gun said to be used in the shooting legally, the owner of the store told media outlets. That didn’t stop Biden from calling for a new law that would prohibit what he described as assault weapons.

Many Republicans, and some Democrats, oppose such a law, making it unlikely it would draw enough support to pass in the current Congress.

The Bidens’ visit came after Joseph Gramaglia, the Buffalo police commissioner, said that the evidence uncovered in the investigation shows it was “an absolute racist hate crime.”

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.