BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Just days after Buffalo marked four years since the May 14 mass shooting, an attack outside of a San Diego mosque has drawn some striking comparisons to the massacre at Tops supermarket — including evidence that what happened in San Diego was inspired in part by what happened in Buffalo.
Ben Popp, lead threat analyst for the Threat Monitoring Unit of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said the connections between the cases are direct and documented.
“These individuals called themselves the ‘Sons of Tarrant,’ in reference to Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter from 2019 who attacked two locations in New Zealand. He’s the one who primarily inspired Payton Gendron. And because of that, these individuals were inspired by both Tarrant and Gendron. They do directly quote both in their manifestos,” Popp said. “The first one actually opens with a quote from Tarrant and a quote from Gendron.”…