BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — One day after the shooting at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, police said someone called in a gun threat at Bocce Pizza on Delaware Avenue. According to Buffalo Police, Joseph Chowaniec, 52, called Bocce Pizza and threatened to “shoot up Bocce’s like the Tops on Jefferson.”
Police said Chowaniec’s threat was part of his complaints about a pizza made earlier in the week. The pizzeria reportedly closed down the store early following the incident. Chowaniec was charged with making a terroristic threat.
The man also reportedly made threats at Southern Tier Brewing Company on Scott Street in downtown Buffalo. Before being charged, Buffalo Police found Chowaniac on a street corner and said no suspicious activity was observed at the time. Police described him as a white man holding a sign reading, “Uncle Sam dismantle white supremacy.”
Before the shooting at Tops Markets, the accused shooter detailed his plan in a white supremacist manifesto. Officials have not yet said whether the threat at Bocce Pizza appears to be racially motivated, despite Chowaniac reportedly referencing the Tops shooting.
Chowaniac was previously arrested in 2008 for impersonating an officer and robbing a victim in an SUV, according to a March 2008 report from the Buffalo News.