Associated Press report on Buffalo was incomplete

“Associated Press report on Buffalo was incomplete,” Monterey Herald, June 2, 2022

It is quite common for the Associated Press to leave out vital information, which makes it difficult to reach reliable conclusions. Their report about the May 14 racist massacre of 10 African Americans in Buffalo did not provide readers with specifics about the accused killer’s, background and beliefs. They failed to study Payton Gendron’s 180-page manifesto, which is available online.

In Gendron’s manifesto, he portrayed himself as a “left-wing authoritarian,” who earlier saw himself as a “communist.” He wrote passionately about the importance of environmentalism, and the evils of “corporate profits and the ever-increasing wealth of the 1% that exploit the people for their own benefit.” As for conservatism, Gendron noted, “conservatism is corporatism in disguise, I want no part of it.”

It appears that Gendron’s actions were indeed based on racism and anti-Semitism, along with hostility against “corporate backed capitalists” and “individualism.”

News media outlets should do serious research before attacking innocent bystanders and ideologies.

Sharon Wood, Carmel

Wayback machine link to Manifesto: https://web.archive.org/web/20220514224319/https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/spree-killer-manifesto.pdf