New York

At least ten people were killed by a gunman in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York state on Saturday, local media reported.

The gunman opened fire after entering the supermarket located at a neighborhood dominated by black people, Xinhua news agency reported.

The shooter has been taken in custody, tweeted Buffalo Police Department.

US President Joe Biden has been briefed on "the horrific shooting" in Buffalo, according to the White House.

Biden "will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

The gunman is a white man in late teens or early 20s wearing a black helmet, according to a report by the New York Post citing two witnesses of the carnage.

An investigation is under way to check if the gunman posted a manifesto online and the shooting was believed to be live-streamed, said the report, citing a local enforcement official.
 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) suspects that the shooting was a racially motivated hate crime, Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI's Buffalo field office said on Saturday.

"We are investigating this incident as both a hate crime and a case of racially motivated violent extremism," Belongia said during a briefing, reported Sputnik media.

Named Tops Friendly Market, the supermarket is located around 2 miles northeast of downtown Buffalo.

More than 28,000 people have died or been injured due to gun-related incidents in the US this year, according to a database run by the nonprofit research group Gun Violence Archive.