BUFFALO, N.Y. – Federal prosecutors announced on Friday that they plan to seek the death penalty for a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo. Payton Gendron, 20, is currently serving a life sentence with no chance of parole after pleading guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism in the 2022 attack.
While New York does not have capital punishment, the Justice Department had the option of seeking the death penalty in a separate federal hate crimes case. Gendron had offered to plead guilty in that case if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. This decision marks the first time that President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has authorized a new pursuit of the death penalty.
Gendron drove more than 200 miles from his home in rural Conklin, N.Y., to a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo’s largely Black East Side neighborhood, where he shot eight supermarket customers, the store security guard, and a church deacon who drove shoppers to and from the store with their groceries. Three people were wounded but survived. In court papers announcing the decision to seek the death penalty, Trini Ross, the U.S. attorney for western New York, cited the substantial planning that went into the shooting, including the choice of location, which she said was meant to “maximize the number of Black victims.”
Relatives of the victims, whose ages ranged from 32 to 86, have expressed mixed views on whether they thought federal prosecutors should pursue the death penalty. An attorney for Gendron, Sonya Zoghlin, said she was “deeply disappointed” by the government’s decision to seek the death penalty, noting that her client was 18 at the time of the shooting.
Since taking office, Attorney General Merrick Garland has permitted the continuation of two capital prosecutions and withdrawn from pursuing death in more than two dozen cases. The Justice Department has declined to pursue the death penalty in other mass killings. Gendron carried out his attack on May 14, 2022, using a semi-automatic marked with racial slurs and phrases including “The Great Replacement,” a reference to a conspiracy theory that there’s a plot to diminish the influence of White people.
The case has left family members of the victims and the community somber, with one individual stating, “I will be scarred…the community of the East Side, we’re all gonna be scarred. For me, my goal is to look at the scar and know that I am healed.”
In conclusion, the decision to seek the death penalty for Gendron marks a pivotal moment for President Biden’s Justice Department and has raised mixed emotions among the families of the victims. Its implications will be closely watched as the case progresses through the legal system.