On May 14, Payton S. Gendron parked his car at a Tops Market in Buffalo, got out, and started shooting. He injured three individuals and killed 10 over the course of the following few minutes. He has since entered a guilty plea to the killings, months after the shooting.
On November 28, Gendron entered a guilty plea to 15 of the indictment’s 25 allegations. He admitted to 10 counts of first-degree murder, 3 counts of attempted second-degree murder committed as a hate crime, 2 counts of criminal possession of a weapon, and 1 count of domestic terrorism in the first degree motivated by hatred. He pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder charges, thus ten counts of second-degree murder that were being investigated as hate crimes were dropped.
After the killer admitted responsibility, the victims’ relatives made statements. Some of them, WGRZ reports, were upset with Gendron’s appearance in court, claiming they didn’t anticipate him to be clean-shaven.
Police discovered a racist manifesto following the shooting. The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James published a study that partly attributed Gendron’s radicalization to online resources.
The gunman will be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of release. A federal court has also imposed the death penalty against him. On February 15, 2023, he will be sentenced in state court.
