The man who admitted killing 10 people and wounding three in a racist rampage in a Buffalo supermarket will spend the rest of his life in prison, a judge ruled in New York’s first use of a law targeting domestic terrorism motivated by hate.
(Bloomberg) — The man who admitted killing 10 people and wounding three in a racist rampage in a Buffalo supermarket will spend the rest of his life in prison, a judge ruled in New York’s first use of a law targeting domestic terrorism motivated by hate.
“There is no place for you or your ignorant, hateful and evil ideologies in a civilized society,” Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan told Payton Gendron at a hearing Wednesday in Buffalo. She sentenced him to life in prison without parole. “You will never see the light of day as a free man, ever again.”
Gendron, 19, had pleaded guilty in the case to charges including domestic terrorism, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons charge. Gendron, who claimed he was radicalized by White-supremacist propaganda, drove 200 miles from his home to a predominantly Black neighborhood, used an AR-15 rifle to kill shoppers on May 14, and streamed the attack online.
In court on Wednesday, Gendron was confronted by the raw anger and sadness of the victims’ families, many of whom addressed him in court in an emotional sentencing hearing.
“Do I hate you? No. Do I want you to die? No. I want you to stay alive. I want you to think about this every day of your life,” said Tamika Harper, a niece of Geraldine Talley, 62, who was killed in the attack. “It hurts so bad, but I’m going to pray for you.”
“I want personally to choke you and leave my fingerprints on your neck,” said Barbara Massey Mapps, the sister of Katherine “Kat” Massey, 72, a civil rights activist who was killed. During Mapps’s address, a man charged Gendron, dressed in an orange prison suit and shackled in a chair next to his lawyers. Court officers restrained the man while Gendron was quickly hustled out of the courtroom.
“I understand that emotion and I understand the anger,” Eagan said, resuming the hearing after a break. “But we can not have that in the courtroom.”
Prosecutors said Gendron was the first to face the domestic terrorism charge, which was passed in 2020 and mandates life in prison without an opportunity for parole. He faces federal charges, which carry the possibility of a death sentence if the Justice Department chooses to pursue it.
(Adds name of family member in sixth paragraph.)
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