Accused gunman in Buffalo mass shooting appears in court | ABCNL

the latest on the racist supermarket

shooting

in Buffalo, the 18-year-old suspect

accused

of killing 10 people and wounding three others who appeared in

court

moments ago Stephanie Ramos is with us, investigative correspondent is also with us lead Aaron Kutursky and host of our own law and crime network, Brian Buckmeyer. Join us to learn more about this. We are seeing the images here for the first time. Peyton Gendron's boys enter the

court

room in the white orange jumpsuits as we look at these images that we are seeing for the first time. tell us exactly what happened in court this was a very brief appearance Priest of Peyton Gendron who is charged so far with one count of first degree murder to which his attorney says he will plead not guilty the case is now before a grand jury in the Erie County and so this particular hearing was quickly adjourned right after it started and he is due back in court on June 9th by then.

It's anticipated that the grand jury will issue an indictment and be able to enter a formal statement, so if you look at Peyton Gendron there in the orange jumpsuit and a white mask, her attorneys were telling reporters outside the courthouse that she really hadn't said much. who remained silent inside that room, out of sight. Our victims' families were told that some of Payton Gendron's own relatives are also in the courtroom about this. brief appearance, he is due back in court on June 9th and you can see that he is under heavy guard with several Buffalo police officers standing right behind him and I think we can all understand why for sure Stephanie, now we know that genre in social networks. media posts are a focal point of the investigation, the ongoing investigation tells us more about what we know about his social media posts and these documents that we've even been able to get our hands on here at ABC News, well, Kara , there are almost 600 The page documents a compilation of some of the messages the alleged shooter posted on a social media platform called Discord, some very ugly messages, but this is what investigators are analyzing in all of his writings on social media and gathering evidence, as Aaron mentioned, Gendron has been charged with an initial count of first degree murder and it's likely to go up, so let me tell you about this.

Brian, who we know, Stephanie just pointed out that he has been charged with one count of first degree murder, but you know, 10 people died in this

shooting

, so why is this suspect only facing one charge? Could we see more charges? Yeah, Cara, so the only charge I would say is a placeholder for the process to move forward, the grand jury will evaluate the facts and also. investigating to some extent and I would expect many more hate crime charges, reckless endangerment, 10 more murders and also attempted murder of those who were injured, so I would expect a long list of charges facing the Buffalo shooter in the near future .

Brian, about his appearance, you know, it's very different from yesterday, when he came in. We saw photos of him in court in a hospital gown. He today he comes with the monkey of him, without showing any emotion, but under strong surveillance, yes, I think that's the contrast. Where he came from when we first saw him in the hospital ward. Most likely he came from the hospital. He was evaluated to a certain extent. That will be something the defense will try to potentially use for a future defense, but here he is coming from a prison. or a temporary detention center, so he's more concerned about that kind of prison suit that we're seeing and I think just because of the seriousness of the situation he probably had the opportunity to talk to his attorney a little bit more. a more reserved and quiet person who won't make a lot of noise or talk much during this German short, right and Stephanie, you know you're in Buffalo, you've been covering the story since the beginning, just talk.

Tell us how the community has come together over the past few days and what it's been like to be there right after everything. Well Kira, this community has really depended on each other for strength, as you can imagine, this is a very difficult time. time for them, this

gunman

supposedly we have to say that he showed up at this Tops supermarket in Buffalo and this is a place where many members of the community see it as a community center, this is where they gather, where they exchange stories in conversations. and when you hear people say that this is a very close-knit community, in reality everyone seems to know each other, prayer meetings and food distribution tents have been organized so that these people have a place to go to get food, this It was the only supermarket on the east side of Buffalo that they could go to and of course it is now closed as part of the investigation.

They have truly come together to strengthen each other during this extremely difficult time. One more question, Aaron. Take it, you know, it's been reporting that officials learned that the suspect was able to purchase this semi-automatic rifle in part because it was never subject to New York's red flag law, which we talked about yesterday, that would have prevented the store from actually stop him from selling you a gun and when we covered Governor Kathy Hokel on this live event, we talked about signing this executive order that would change that, how quickly could it go into effect and how would it change things?

This would change things because it takes the guesswork out of red flag law currently, Kira, for a court to evaluate someone as a danger to himself or herself or others, it takes a petition from a family member, a school police officer, and what the governor wants to do is do that. automatic in the case of someone like Peyton Gendron, who mentioned murder-suicide during a writing assignment last June, was evaluated and underwent a mental health exam for about a day and a half and that was what in the Going forward the governor wants the state police to automatically refer that type of case to court so they can do an evaluation to see if a red flag should be applied.

Alright. Aaron, thank you very much Stephanie Brian. I know we will talk a lot throughout the day. also tomorrow, as we follow every move in this case, thank you, hello everyone, George Stephanopoulos, thank you for visiting the ABC News YouTube channel. For more videos, highlights and live event coverage, click right here to subscribe. to our channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app to receive breaking news alerts, thanks for watching.