Before the May 14 massacre at the Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue, the accused 18-year-old gunman turned to an Iowa man named Cory Clark for advice on purchasing body armor.
According to his online diary, Payton Gendron and Clark – a customer service specialist for the Iowa-based body armor manufacturer RMA Armament – interacted over a period of months on both the public social media site Reddit and in a private chatroom for weapons enthusiasts.
A Buffalo News review of nearly 3,200 posts Clark made on Reddit, as well as related marketing activity on platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Discord, show that RMA has for years marketed military-grade body armor to civilian buyers ranging from firearms hobbyists to doomsday preppers.
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Under the username shorta07, Clark promoted RMA as one of “very few manufacturers” to sell directly to the public. He has suggested buyers circumvent civilian body armor restrictions in one state and advised Reddit users on the types of body armor that protect against military bullets.
The company also works with an online influencer who has posted video "satires" about killing federal agents. In August 2020, Clark encouraged Redditors to stock up on body armor before the presidential election.
When Gendron finally placed a $607 order for the bulletproof RMA armor he wore during his attack, he left a single note on the order form:
“It’s recommended to give Corey (sic) a bonus.”
Selling body armor to civilians is legal in most cases, and there is no indication that Clark knew about either Gendron’s plans or his violent, racist ideology. Representatives for RMA opened, but did not respond to, emails seeking interviews for this article, and Clark hung up on a Buffalo News reporter after he was asked about his contact with Gendron.
In a May statement to The News, RMA Armament said it was “saddened by the senseless act of violence that occurred in Buffalo” and that its products “are intended for the protection of law-abiding private citizens, police departments and government partners.”
But the company’s sales and marketing practices could expose it to lawsuits, three legal experts said, particularly given the role that body armor played in the Tops massacre.
Police have said that Gendron’s RMA-made body armor stopped a bullet fired by security guard Aaron Salter Jr., allowing Gendron to return fire and kill seven additional people, including Salter, inside the supermarket.
Attorney Terrence Connors, who represents the families of several victims as well as individuals injured in the attack, said his firm is actively investigating RMA’s marketing practices.
“Any company in the business of body armor or high-capacity weapons is operating with the knowledge of American history over the past several decades, where all of these products have been used repeatedly for mass slaughters,” said Jonathan Lowy, the chief counsel for the national Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which has pursued dozens of civil actions against gunmakers and dealers. “They’re not operating on a clean slate – they know for a fact how these products have been used. They have every reason to believe it will happen again and again.”
Lawmakers and policy experts are directing new scrutiny at civilian body armor sales, which have grown steadily in the past 20 years and steeply since the start of the pandemic – motivated by social unrest and growing anti-government sentiment, said Aaron Westrick, a professor at Lake State University who has worked with body armor companies and law enforcement.
According to the Violence Project, a nonpartisan research center, body armor has featured in 17 mass shootings since 2009, including the attack in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that killed 26 people in 2017, and the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14 people in 2015.
In June, New York barred civilians from purchasing many types of armor, while New Jersey and Pennsylvania considered similar legislation. New York Reps. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, and Chris Jacobs, R-Orchard Park, have also signed onto a federal proposal restricting civilian access.
In proposing all four measures, lawmakers pointed to the ease with which Gendron obtained his body armor and the degree to which it made his attack more deadly.
“Body armor has been an increasingly common part of mass shootings, especially of mass shootings where the goal seems to be to kill the maximum number of people,” state Sen. Brian Kavanaugh, D-Manhattan, said during a June 2 floor vote for the New York ban. “... It is often marketed as tactical gear you need along with your tactical weapons.”
Advice and 'appreciation'
It’s not clear where Gendron first encountered Clark, who has posted online as a representative of RMA since 2019.
The Centerville, Iowa-based company, founded in 2013, manufactures and sells hardened ceramic body armor through its website and third-party dealers. RMA’s chief executive, Blake Waldrop, is a Marine veteran and former police officer who has said he founded the company after a comrade died during an IED attack in Iraq while wearing standard-issue armor. In 2017, RMA represented Iowa in a White House showcase of American-made products.
Clark started on the company’s factory floor in 2018 but was promoted to a social media and customer service role, he wrote, after his managers noticed an influx of sales based on his personal Reddit posts.
In that role, Clark identified himself as a representative of RMA and promoted RMA products, sales and discounts in a range of Reddit groups – beginning with communities for military and law enforcement members, who sometimes buy their own body armor. RMA sold 80% of its products to law enforcement and defense agencies before the pandemic, Waldrop told a local news station.
But “hundreds of thousands” of civilians entered the market in 2020, shattering sales records and rapidly shifting RMA’s main clientele, Waldrop said. In one five-day period that October, RMA sold more than 1,200 sets of one specific armor plate direct to consumers, Clark wrote on Reddit.
Under the username shorta07, Clark also began posting more frequently and in Reddit communities with far broader audiences, including r/TacticalGear and r/QualityTacticalGear, where he promoted RMA plates as an accessible option for civilian consumers.
Posts from the account identify Clark by his name and corporate email address, and biographical details shared by shorta07 in the years prior to Clark's work with RMA also match the work history listed on his public LinkedIn profile. Clark wrote that he told his boss early on that he did not want to post under a separate RMA username in order to make the account more personal.
The forums he frequented attract a wide range of members, from hobbyists, collectors and airsoft enthusiasts to regular citizens fearful of crime and survivalists prepping for social collapse. In 2020, a member of r/TacticalGear posted photos of his uniform for the Ohio Gadsden Militia, which describes itself as an armed citizen group.
“Why do you want plates?” Clark wrote in a 2021 post to r/TacticalGear. “Because this is America, and people have a RIGHT to own plates. That’s the only answer you need.”
Clark interacted with the accused Buffalo gunman on at least four occasions, according to Gendron’s online diary and deleted Reddit posts. Transcripts of the diary, which Gendron wrote in a private Discord server, spread online in the hours after the attack.
In August 2021, Gendron posted in the subreddit r/TacticalGear that RMA was his “go to for armor plates.” Clark replied that he appreciated Gendron, according to a message deleted after the Buffalo shooting.
Months later, in December 2021, Gendron began shopping for body armor for his attack, his diary suggests. The 18-year-old wrote that he wanted armor that could withstand fire from at least a handgun in case he encountered a police officer or a customer with a concealed weapon.
On Jan. 8, Gendron wrote that he “talked with shorta with RMA armament” and concluded that the company sells “cheap plates that are actually usable.” He purchased a set of hardened armor plates through RMA’s website two days later, posting screenshots of the order form – and his note about Clark’s “bonus” – to his journal.
Gendron later wrote that Clark responded to a post he made on Plateland, a private chat room for gun enthusiasts linked to the anonymous message board 4chan, which is well-known for its violent and white supremacist content. On April 4, Gendron wrote that Clark gave him “confirmation I can advertise RMA plates,” though it’s not clear what he meant by that.
In a 180-page document published after his attack, Gendron spent 34 typed pages laying out his recommended body armor for future shooters, including 11 RMA products.
Clark has since continued to post to Reddit as an RMA representative.
A presence on several platforms
Since he began posting on RMA’s behalf, many of Clark’s messages have concerned traits that distinguish the manufacturer. RMA, he wrote in one 2020 post, has passed numerous ballistic tests, makes its product in the United States, “and obviously we have a Reddit guy also.”
Unlike some other manufacturers, RMA did not limit its sales to military or law enforcement. To place an order, buyers provided basic shipping and contact information, similar to Amazon.
Many companies will not sell to civilians without “some kind of paperwork,” Westrick said, such as a letter of recommendation or support from local law enforcement. Text at the bottom of RMA's product pages does inform customers that, by placing an order, they "are acknowledging that you do not intend to use the body armor for any criminal purpose."
Through Clark, RMA also engaged in other, potentially controversial marketing practices, such as advising customers on how to subvert state body armor restrictions. In Connecticut, which requires that civilian customers buy body armor in face-to-face transactions, Clark suggested that customers “ship to the state next to them ;)” in posts to TikTok and Reddit.
Clark exhorted customers to buy body armor in August 2020, writing that “my gut feeling tells me in November during the election, it's going to be BAD no matter which way the election goes.”
A year later, in September 2021, an anonymous member of a chatroom affiliated with the community r/TacticalGear asked Clark which plates would defeat an enhanced M855A1 bullet, "setting aside" any restrictions that would limit such gear to soldiers or law enforcement. Clark recommended an RMA product. The M855A1 bullet is manufactured for military use and not available on the civilian market, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.
RMA has also partnered with online influencers who review its products in exchange for a small cut of sales generated by their posts. One of those affiliates – a veteran and TikTok influencer who posts under the username NV_actual – has published multiple videos that joke about killing “stacks” of “fed boys,” terms commonly used to describe federal agents working for agencies such as the ATF and the FBI.
In one video, he dances to Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” in full tactical gear, under the caption “POV: You eliminated the entire stack outside your front door.”
In another post from April, NV_actual nods his head while the song “Boogaloo” – whose lyrics describe a violent murder spree – plays in the background. “Boogaloo” is also the name of an anti-government extremist movement. A caption encourages viewers to use a discount code to buy RMA armor, while also calling the video satirical.
He did not respond to a Reddit message requesting an interview.
On a corporate Twitter account, RMA has also shared messages containing the hashtags “#boogalo” and “#prepper.”
“Does villainous look good on us?” the account posted on May 6, just days before the Tops massacre.
Does villainous look good on us?#bodyarmor #tactical #tacticalgear #rmadefense #rmaarmament #Iowa #madeinamerica #madeinusa pic.twitter.com/a3VmGMvYPS
— RMA Defense (@RMADefense) May 6, 2022
Legal obstacles
Victims and their families will face obstacles in any civil suit against body armor manufacturers, legal experts acknowledged. Plaintiffs would have to prove both that manufacturers could have predicted their product would be misused in an offensive attack and that their failure to intervene caused greater damage.
“Is it shocking to a ‘reasonable member of the jury,’ so to speak, that some portion of the people for whom those products are marketed use them in the way that they're depicted?” asked Adam Skaggs, the chief counsel and policy director at the Giffords Law Center, which advocates for gun safety legislation.
At the same time, courts have signaled a new willingness to hold a wide circle of third parties accountable as mass shootings have grown more frequent, said Michael Steinlage, who chaired a recent committee on mass shooting liability for the American Bar Association. Judges have ruled that such shootings have become so routine that, under some circumstances, entities including schools, law enforcement, social media platforms and attackers’ families could have anticipated them.
Even gunmakers, who enjoy broad federal immunity in most civil suits, have recently faced new consequences: In a landmark 2019 case, the Connecticut Supreme Court greenlighted a suit against Remington Arms, the maker of the assault rifle used in the Sandy Hook massacre, after victims’ families argued that Remington’s advertising appealed to troubled young men. Remington settled in February for $73 million.
If successful, a civil suit against RMA would also set new precedent.
“We are looking very closely at the marketing tactics deployed by RMA Defense and questioning why an 18-year-old civilian would need body armor of this type,” Connors, the victims’ attorney, said.
News data intern Corey Dockser contributed to this report.