Buffalo shooting survivors say social media companies and a body armour maker enabled the killer

Wayne Jones, left, looks on as his aunt JoAnn Daniels, holds a photograph of his mother Celestine Chaney, May 16, 2022, who was killed in the shooting at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y. Jones, the only child of 65-year-old Chaney, is the plaintiff in a lawsuit claiming tech and social media giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google bear responsibility for radicalizing shooter Payton Gendron. — AP

YouTube, Reddit and a body armour manufacturer were among the businesses that helped enable the gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, according to a pair of lawsuits announced Wednesday.

The complementary lawsuits filed by Everytown Law in state court in Buffalo claim that the massacre at Tops supermarket in May 2022 was made possible by a host of companies and individuals, from tech giants to a local gun shop to the gunman’s parents. The suits were filed Tuesday on behalf of the son of a 65-year-old victim and a group of survivors who say they’re still traumatised more than a year later. Everytown Law is the litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.