By Lindsay DeDario and Tyler Clifford
BUFFALO (Reuters) – The avowed white supremacist who confessed to fatally shooting 10 Black people last year at a western New York grocery store faces a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the attack when he appears in state court on Wednesday.
Payton Gendron, 19, pleaded guilty to a total of 15 charges, including murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate, for carrying out the May 14 mass shooting in Buffalo, according to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office.
Gendron was the first defendant in New York to be indicted for a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate in the first degree under a state law enacted in 2020.
He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole on the domestic terrorism charge alone. New York does not have capital punishment, although he still could get a death sentence if convicted of pending federal charges.
Prosecutors say the gunman targeted a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo, about 200 miles away from his home, intending to kill as many Black people as he could with an assault weapon. In addition to the 10 people who were killed, three others were wounded.
Gendron, of Conklin, New York, was scheduled to appear before Judge Susan Eagan in Erie County Court at 9:30 a.m. local time. He was 18 at the time of the attack.
The rampage shocked a country that has grown accustomed to mass shootings and where racial strife continues to simmer.
The victims ranged in age from 20 to 86 and included staff, patrons and community advocates. Two of the survivors are white, officials said.
Gendron is expected to issue an apology to the families of the victims during the hearing, the Buffalo News reported, citing unnamed sources.
An apology “does not erase what he did. He should suffer just like the families that have been left behind,” Zeneta Everhart, whose 21-year-old son was wounded, told the newspaper. She is expected to deliver a victim impact statement at Wednesday’s hearing.
In addition to state charges, Gendron faces 27 federal hate crimes and firearms offenses. He pleaded not guilty to those charges in July, and his lawyers have sought a plea deal in an effort to avoid a death sentence allowed under federal law. The Justice Department has not disclosed what punishment it would seek if Gendron is convicted.
The gunman streamed live video of the assault to the social media platform Twitch after posting a racist screed online detailing his inspiration from other racially motivated mass killings, authorities said.
(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; Editing by Caitlin Webber)
