Payton Gendron, the suspect in the Buffalo mass shooting, exhibited disconcerting behavior toward the end of his time at Susquehanna Valley High School, according to some of his classmates. One classmate, Nathan Twitchwell, told the New York Times that Gendron wore a hazmat suit to class: “He wore the entire suit: boots, gloves, everything.” Cassaundra Williams, another peer who recalled Gendron as intelligent and quiet, told the outlet that he opted for remote school even as others returned to in-person learning. According to the Daily Mail, Gendron was enrolled in a politics class in which students were able to create their own countries; a classmate said that he opted for a “Hitler-esque” totalitarian government in his imagined nation. Buffalo law enforcement has reported that Gendron threatened violence at his high school and received a subsequent mental health evaluation.
