She believed it had something to do with protecting himself from the coronavirus, but she didn't rule out the fact that he was making a joke. Last year, one former student recalled, Gendron wore a hazmat suit to school for a week. Classmates said that he often acted strangely at times and espoused extremist views on politics. After police looked into the account, Gendron was referred for mental health evaluation and counseling. 'A school official reported that this very troubled young man had made statements indicating that he wanted to do a shooting, either at a graduation ceremony, or sometime after,' a government source told the Buffalo News. A year later he ended up shooting 13 people - 10 of them fatally - during an attack motivated by his hatred for black people at a Top Market supermarket in Buffalo. Officials at the Susquehanna Valley High School brought in New York State Police to investigate Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, NY, in June of 2021 after he made statements that he would shoot fellow students. A teenage white supremacist who murdered 10 people at a Buffalo, NY threatened to shoot a classmate at his high school graduation last year.
