Couple randomly attacked, 1 stabbed, by group of teens in Toronto, police say
A man has been transported to hospital after police say he was stabbed in a random attack carried out by a group of teens in Toronto on Friday night.
The white man accused of killing 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo appeared in court Thursday, standing silently during a brief proceeding attended by some relatives of the victims after a grand jury indicted him.
Payton Gendron, 18, wore an orange jail uniform, a mask and handcuffs. As he was led out, someone shouted "Payton, you're a coward!" from the courtroom gallery. He is being held in jail without bail.
Assistant district attorney Gary Hackbush said the first-degree murder indictment, which covers all 10 deaths, was handed up Wednesday.
Thirteen people in all were shot Saturday at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Authorities are continuing to investigate the possibility of hate crime and terrorism charges.
District attorney John Flynn said his office would not comment on the case while the grand jury investigation continues.
Gendron's lawyers also declined comment, according to defense attorney Daniel DuBois.
Relatives of several victims met privately with the Rev. Al Sharpton before joining him at a news conference outside of Buffalo's Antioch Baptist Church. Sharpton said his civil rights group, the National Action Network, would cover funeral expenses for those killed in the attack.
"These hate crimes need to be stopped," Sharpton said. "We need to hold all that have aided and abetted the hate in this country accountable."
Sharpton said the innocent victims of the gunman "were guilty of being Black."
Gendron, 18, livestreamed the attack from a helmet camera before surrendering to police outside the grocery store. Shortly before the attack, he posted hundreds of pages of writings to online discussion groups where he detailed his plans for the assault and his racist motivation.
Investigators have been examining those documents, which included a private diary he kept on the chat platform Discord.
At his initial court appearance last week, Gendron's court-appointed lawyer entered a plea of "not guilty" on his behalf. He is due back in court June 9.
Five days after the shooting, officials announced Thursday that evidence collection at the supermarket was completed. Tops Market president John Persons pledged to open the store as soon as possible, but said he could not give a timeline.
The massacre at the Tops supermarket was unsettling even in a nation that has become almost numb to mass shootings. All but two of the 13 people shot during the attack were Black. Gendron's online writings said he planned the assault after becoming infatuated with white supremacist ideology he encountered online.
Stephen Belongia, the FBI's lead agent in Buffalo, said agents were still working to piece together Gendron's motives and how he came to his extremist views.
"An important part of these sorts of incidents is to tell the whole story that may not be heard in a courtroom at a later date -- to understand, to the extent that you can, what the motives are of this gunman, how he became radicalized, what he was reading, where he was reading it, who he was inspired by," Belongia said at a news briefing.
The diary said Gendron planned his attack in secret, with no outside help, but Discord confirmed Wednesday that an invitation to access his private writings was sent to a small group of people about 30 minutes before the assault began.
Some of them accepted the invitation. It was unclear how many read what he had written or logged on to view the assault live. It also wasn't clear whether anyone tried to alert law enforcement.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday authorized the state's attorney general, Letitia James, to investigate social media platforms used by Gendron to determine if they were liable for "providing a platform to plan and promote violence."
In Buffalo on Thursday, Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said social media users can also play a role by speaking up when they see people posting violent or threatening content.
"You need to out these people," he said at a briefing. "Expose those that are putting out those types of extreme views and let us root them out."
Associated Press reporters Karen Matthews and Jennifer Peltz in New York; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Robert Bumsted in Buffalo; and Michael Hill in Conklin contributed to this report. Balsamo reported from Washington.
A man has been transported to hospital after police say he was stabbed in a random attack carried out by a group of teens in Toronto on Friday night.
Ron Ellis, who played over 1,000 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs and was a member of Canada's team at the 1972 Summit Series, has died at age 79.
The wildfire that sparked Friday and caused evacuation orders for more than 3,000 people in Fort Nelson, B.C., and the nearby Fort Nelson First Nation, has grown to nearly 1,700 hectares in size, according to a Saturday morning update from the BC Wildfire Service.
Hours before the final, Dutch contestant Joost Klein was dramatically booted out by organizers over a backstage incident. He had failed to perform at two dress rehearsals on Friday, and contest organizer the European Broadcasting Union said it was investigating an "incident."
From London, to Mildmay, Collingwood and St. Thomas, here are some highlights of Friday night and Saturday morning's northern lights display.
A growing number of civilians and police officers are demanding the dismissal and arrest of Haiti's police chief as heavily armed gangs launched a new attack in the capital of Port-au-Prince, seizing control of yet another police station early Saturday.
Irresponsibly using a credit card can land you in financial trouble, but personal finance columnist Christopher Liew says when used properly, it can be a powerful wealth-building tool that can help grow your credit profile and create new opportunities.
Where you live plays a big factor in what you pay at the grocery store. And while it's no secret the same item may have a different price depending on the store, city or province, we wanted to see just how big the differences are, and why.
A man who was accused of sexually and physically assaulting a woman had his charges dropped in April, just weeks before he was set to stand trial in Toronto, due to a lack of judges in the region.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.