A former Trump administration official has announced his departure from the Republican party following the Buffalo shooting earlier this month.
Former deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor, 35, wrote on Twitter last Wednesday that the leaders of the GOP were responsible for "inspiring violent radicals".
Ten people were left dead and several others were injured after an attack in a Buffalo neighborhood on Saturday (May 14). Eighteen-year-old suspect Peyton Gendron was later arrested by police.
The shooting took place in a predominantly Black community - with 11 of the 13 people shot by the suspect being Black. Erie County Sheriff John Garcia later called the shooting a "straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community."
Per the Daily Mail, police investigated the shooter's 180-page manifesto that was reportedly posted on online discussion groups before going on his rampage, in which he described himself as a white supremacist.
The manifesto included a plan that detailed his idea to drive several counties away to carry out the massacre at the Tops Friendly Market. The police reportedly said that he also sought to murder more people after the shooting.
Following the Buffalo attack, Taylor tweeted: "I'm done. I no longer believe the Republican Party can be saved. The vitriolic rhetoric is inspiring violent radicals. I'm quitting the GOP. And I hope more do the same."
The former official worked under the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations. In an opinion article posted on NBC News, Taylor wrote: "I’ve been a political conservative most of my life, having worked for two Republican presidents and for a GOP-controlled Congress."
"In the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday, it’s become glaringly obvious that my party no longer represents conservative values but in fact poses a threat to them — and to America. That’s why I am quitting the GOP."
He continued that after working within the government for a decade, it is clear to him that the Republican party is "mainstreaming conspiracy theories that are fueling a statistical spike in political intimidation, attitudes toward violence, and the specter of domestic terrorism that we witnessed this weekend in New York."
Taylor added that the Buffalo shooter was allegedly "radicalized by racist viewpoints" that were inspired by the Republican party and that the threat can't be accepted any longer.
He concluded: "So today, in the tragic aftermath of Buffalo, I’m becoming something else — an independent — and my fellow conservatives should do the same."
We are sending our thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of all the victims that lost their lives in Buffalo.