Man Threatens to Kill 'All the Black People' at Site of Buffalo Massacre

Washington state man arrested by FBI
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 23, 2022 7:31 AM CDT
Man Threatens to Kill 'All the Black People' at Site of Buffalo Massacre
Police walk outside the Tops grocery store May 15, 2022, in Buffalo, NY.   (AP Photo/Joshua Bessex, File)

The Tops supermarket where 10 Black people were killed in a mass shooting in May received phone calls with similar threats on Tuesday and Wednesday. Joey David George, a Seattle-area man with an alleged history of making racist threats, asked how many Black people were in the store and "said he would make the news if he shot and killed all the Black people, including all the women, children, and babies," court documents say. George was arrested by the FBI, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports.

George allegedly claimed he would be able to "pick off people from the parking lot" with an assault-style rifle, ranted about a "race war" and said, "This is what happens in a blue state." Authorities tracked the phone number to find George, WIVB reports. Due to the alleged other similar threats made against restaurants in California and Connecticut and cannabis dispensaries in Maryland and Washington, George was charged with with making interstate threats of racially motivated violence. The threats against Tops came just days after it reopened for the first time since the May massacre, the New York Times reports. "Some of us saw them get shot. We have to live with that every day,” said one of the employees. (More Buffalo stories.)

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