New York man pleads guilty to Buffalo supermarket killing spree
The white gunman who fatally shot 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo supermarket earlier this year pleaded guilty on Monday to murder and hatemotivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Payton Gendron, 19, entered the plea on Monday in a courthouse roughly two miles from the grocery store where he used a semiautomatic rifle and body armor to carry out a racist assault he hoped would help preserve white power in the US.
Gendron, who was handcuffed and wore an orange jumpsuit, occasionally licked and clenched his lips as he pleaded guilty to all of the most serious charges against him, including murder, murder as a hate crime and hate-motivated domestic terrorism, which carries an automatic sentence of life without parole.
He answered “yes” and “guilty” as the judge in his case, Susan Eagan, referred to each victim by name and asked whether he killed them because of their race. Gendron also pleaded guilty to wounding three people who survived the May attack.
Many of the relatives of those victims sat and watched, some dabbing their eyes and sniffling. Speaking to reporters later, several said the plea left them cold. It didn’t address the bigger problem, which they said is racism in the US.
“His voice made me feel sick, but it showed me I was right,” said Zeneta Everhart, whose 20-year-old son was shot in the neck but survived. “This country has a problem. This country is inherently violent. It is racist. And his voice showed that to me.”
After the roughly 45-minute proceeding ended, Gendron’s lawyers suggested that he now regrets his crimes, but they didn’t elaborate or take questions.
One of the lawyers, Brian Parker, said he hoped the conclusion of the case against Gendron – who is also facing state charges – would “help in some small way to keep the focus on the needs of the victims and the community”.
Gendron has pleaded not guilty to separate federal hate crime charges that could result in a death sentence if he is convicted of them. The US justice department has not said if it will
seek capital punishment.
Acknowledgment of guilt and a claim of repentance could help Gendron in a penalty phase of a death penalty trial.
The plea comes at a time when many Americans have become nearly desensitized to mass shootings. In recent weeks, there have been deadly attacks at a Walmart in Virginia, at a gay club in Colorado and at the University of Virginia.
Just days after Gendron’s rampage in Buffalo, a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas.
Gendron wore body armor and used a legally bought AR-15-style rifle in his attack on the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo. Those killed ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included an armed security guard who died trying to protect customers, a church deacon and the mother of a former Buffalo fire commissioner. Gendron surrendered when police confronted him as he emerged from the store.
Buffalo’s Democratic mayor, Byron Brown, who was in the courtroom for Gendron’s guilty plea, called for a ban on assault weapons, as did the city’s police commissioner, Joseph Gramaglia.
Relatives of the victims reiterated their calls for Congress and the FBI to address white supremacy and gun violence.
“We are literally begging for those in power to do something about it,” said Garnell Whitfield, whose 86-yearold mother, Ruth Whitfield, was killed.
White supremacy was Gendron’s motive. He said in documents posted online just before the attack that he’d picked the store, about a three-hour drive from his home in Conklin, New York, because it was in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
He said he was motivated by a belief in a massive conspiracy to dilute the power of white people by “replacing” them in the US with people of color.