Toms River, Lakewood Jews Named In Buffalo Shooter's Screed: Sheriff

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Law enforcement is paying heightened attention to security after Lakewood and Toms River were mentioned by name in the 180-page screed of a New York 18-year-old accused in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, the Ocean County sheriff said Monday.

Sheriff Michael G. Mastronardy said his office was notified Saturday that the two towns and their Hasidic Jewish population were mentioned in the Google document posted by Payton Gendron before Saturday's shooting at a Buffalo supermarket. Gendron is accused of shooting 13 people, killing 10, in what authorities said was a racially motivated attack.

"Once we learned of the mention we reached out to our communities," Mastronardy said Monday, to ensure everyone was on watch. There were no specific threats to Toms River or Lakewood, he said.

The Lakewood Scoop published a page from the 180-page document that mentions the two towns; in it, the writer rails about Hasidic Jews, repeating accusations that have been made about the community for years.

Mastronardy said his office reached out to the FBI for additional information but said he is still waiting for federal investigators to complete their investigation.

Police are investigating a 180-page manifesto "at all levels of government," New York authorities said. The manifesto identifies Gendron, who is white, by name as the gunman and details the plot of the shooting, officials told the Associated Press.

The screed espoused "replacement theory," a white supremacist belief that non-whites will eventually replace white people because they have higher birth rates, officials told ABC News.

Police also found Gendron was a frequent visitor of websites extolling white supremacist ideologies and race-based conspiracy theories and had extensively researched other mass killings, including the 2019 mosque shootings in New Zealand, and the man who killed more than 70 people at a summer camp in Norway in 2011, an official told the Associated Press.

The shooting and the mentions of Lakewood and Toms River Hasidic Jews come a month after a spree of attacks in Lakewood and Jackson where two Hasidic Jews were deliberately hit with cars, and a third man was hit and then stabbed, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

Dion Marsh, 27, of Manchester, is charged with bias crimes, terrorism and federal hate crimes in the April 8 attacks. Mastronardy said he did not have information as to whether those attacks were mentioned or inspired the shooting in Buffalo.

Mastronardy said local law enforcement is adding to its precautions, which already were heightened.

"In this day and age there's a lot of things we have to keep an eye on," Mastronardy said.