Among them were a former police officer who tried to stop the shooter, the octogenarian mother of the city's former fire commissioner and a long-term substitute teacher.

Two people remain hospitalized in stable condition, a spokesman for Erie County Medical Center said Saturday night.

Live updates: Buffalo supermarket shooting

The suspect was identified as Payton S.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday the attack was a racist hate crime and will be prosecuted as such.

"The evidence that we have uncovered so far makes no mistake that this is an absolute racist hate crime.

The suspect was in Buffalo a day before the shooting and did some reconnaissance at the Tops Friendly Markets store, the commissioner said.

Gendron, the suspect, surrendered to police and was taken into custody.

Buffalo, my hometown, is the City of Good Neighbors and New York State will be good neighbors for them."

New York State's Office of Victim Services will be in Buffalo throughout the week to help administer funding and assist victims and families in obtaining financial assistance from the state, according to the statement.

In addition, Hochul announced a partnership with rideshare services Uber and Lyft to provide transport to and from local grocery stores for affected community members.

The grocery store company, Tops Markets, is also providing free transportation to members of the Buffalo community affected by the shooting "to ensure our neighbors are able to meet their grocery and pharmacy needs," according to an update on Twitter from the grocery chain.

"While the Tops location at Jefferson Avenue will remain closed until further notice, we are steadfast in our commitment to serving every corner of our community as we have for the past 60 years," the statement reads.

The author of the document, who claims to be Payton Gendron, confesses to the attack and describes himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an anti-Semite.

"We are obviously going through that with a fine-toothed comb and reviewing that for all evidence that may lead us to besides the manifesto itself," Erie County District Attorney John Flynn told CNN's Victor Blackwell.

The manifesto's author says he bought ammo for some time but didn't get serious about planning the attack until January.

The author writes about his perceptions of the dwindling size of the White population and claims White people are being replaced by non-Whites in a "White genocide." This "replacement theory," once a fringe idea, has recently become a talking point for Fox News' host Tucker Carlson as well as other prominent conservatives.

"We continue to investigate this case as a hate crime, a federal hate crime and as a crime perpetrated by a racially motivated, violent extremist," said Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI's Buffalo field office.

In the manifesto, the author says the supermarket in Buffalo is in a ZIP code that "has the highest black percentage that is close enough to where I live."

New York Gov.

Flynn.

The suspect then entered the store and exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard who was a retired member of the Buffalo Police Department, the district attorney said.

The guard was identified as Aaron Salter, Brown said.

Because the suspect wore heavy tactical gear, however, the guard's bullets did not have any effect, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Saturday.

"He was very heavily armed," the police commissioner said.

"He had tactical gear, he had a tactical helmet on, he had a camera that he was livestreaming what he was doing."

Inside the store, nine people were shot before the suspect was apprehended by police, according to the district attorney's statement.