PETA Statement: Buffalo Shooter’s Cat-Killing History

For Immediate Release:
May 18, 2022

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Below, please find a statement from PETA Senior Director of TeachKind Marta Holmberg in response to reports that Payton Gendron, the Buffalo shooting suspect, has a history of cruelty to animals:

Before he allegedly massacred 10 people in a white-supremacist shooting spree, Payton Gendron apparently wrote about stabbing and beheading a cat and posted photos of the dead animal online. The FBI warns that harming animals is a sign of more carnage to come, and amid an epidemic of youth violence, PETA is rushing its empathy-building curriculum to schools in Gendron’s school district and reminds everyone to report every act of cruelty, as many more lives may depend on it.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.