Editing Payton Gendron

Payton S. Gendron was born and raised in Conklin, New York. He has two younger brothers. He attended school in the Susquehanna Valley Central School District. In June 2021, he had been investigated by police for saying he wanted to commit a murder-suicide in a school assignment and threatening a [[school shooting]] at his high school. He was referred for a mental health evaluation and counseling, but was released shortly after.

Prior to the shooting, Gendron wrote a 180-page manifesto titled "The [[Great Replacement / White Genocide|Great Replacement]]", named after the racist theory that white Europeans are being demographically and culturally replaced with non-European people. He blamed Jews for non-white immigration and wrote that non-whites will commit genocide on the white race in the manifesto. The manifesto also includes details on the planned shooting and racist and anti-Semitic memes. Gendron also wrote about his admiration for previous mass shooters who were motivated by racism, especially [[Brenton Tarrant]]. Much of it appears to be plagiarized from Tarrant's manifesto, leading one news reporter to call Gendron's manifesto "a knockoff term paper that plagiarized past mass shooters".