Federal prosecutors seek death penalty for Payton Gendron who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket

CONKLIN, NEW YORK: Federal prosecutors are seeking death penalty for a White supremacist who murdered 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, they said in a court filing on Friday, January 12. Payton Gendron, 20, is already serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole after he pleaded guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism in the 2022 attack.

Although 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 promised to plead guilty in that case if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.

When did the murders take place?

On May 14, 2022, Gendron attacked shoppers and workers with a semi-automatic rifle at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo after driving more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from his home in rural Conklin, New York, Fox News reports.

He chose the business for its location in a predominantly Black neighborhood and livestreamed the massacre from a camera attached to his tactical helmet. The dead, who ranged in age from 32 to 86, included eight 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.

Payton Gendron's rifle was marked with racial slurs

The rifle Gendron fired was 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. Mark Talley, whose 63-year-old mother, Geraldine Talley, was killed, has said he’d rather Gendron be imprisoned for life in the community he attacked than be executed.

“I want that pain to eat at him every second of every day for the rest of his life,” he said after Gendron’s guilty plea in state court.

The Justice Department has made federal death penalty cases a rarity since the election of President Joe Biden, a Democrat who opposes capital punishment. Attorney General Merrick Garland instituted a moratorium on federal executions in 2021 pending a review of procedures.

Although the moratorium does not stop prosecutors from seeking death sentences, the Justice Department has done so sparingly. It also went ahead last year with an effort to get the death sentence against an extremist who killed eight people on a New York City bike path, though a lack of a unanimous jury meant that prosecution resulted in a life sentence.