Adding to the shock of the shooting rampage at a Buffalo supermarket that left 10 dead and three wounded, the media has learned that one of accused killer Payton Gendron’s best friends was a Hispanic man who has a Black girlfriend.
Gendron allegedly drove 200 miles from Conklin, New York, to slaughter Black people at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo. According to the police report, 10 of the 13 people who were shot were African American. During his months-long planning, Gendron specifically chose Buffalo’s east side because of its high density of African American residents.
According to the Daily Mail, prior to the killings, Gendron would spend much of his spare time with Matt Casado, a Hispanic man, and his Black girlfriend Skylar McClain, at Casado’s mobile home. Casado is still processing the shock after learning that Gendron is being accused of being a mass killer with no remorse.
“I didn’t know he was a racist and wholeheartedly believed he was a good kid till Saturday,” said Casado. They both attended Susquehanna Valley High School in Conklin, New York.
“After 11th grade, he was considered weird because he did not talk much and none of his other friends wanted to spend time with him,” Casado added in his interview with the Daily Mail.
Casado’s girlfriend also attended the same high school but didn’t speak with Gendron for years.
“I just wish I had never met him. He is a disgrace,” McClain, 19, told the UK-based publication. “I always thought he liked me because I was Matt’s girlfriend. He was never mean to me. He never did anything that made me think that he was racist.”
After the bloodbath at the Buffalo grocery store, police discovered a 180-page manifesto where Gendron railed against Blacks, Jews and other minorities and lamented the decreasing White population percentage — despite the fact that Caucasians still enjoy a comfortable statistical majority in the U.S.
Casado is also resentful that Gendron used him. The day before Gendron set off on his trek to allegedly kill many African Americans, Gendron stopped by Casado’s home to drop off five boxes of 5.66 mm high-caliber ammunition and a high-powered rifle.
“I was infuriated because he thought my house was a storage unit because he said he had to rearrange his house,” Casado told the publication.
