A grand jury has indicted the Buffalo mass shooter on domestic terrorism charges after he brutally killed ten Black people inside a supermarket last month.
On Wednesday, 18-year-old Payton Gendron learned of the new charges, adding to his mounting case. The domestic terrorism charge classifies the killings to be racially motivated, targeting his victims solely based on their race. He faces 25 counts, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, and hate crimes. Gendron has pleaded not guilty.
Gendron entered the Tops Friendly Markets that fateful Saturday morning with an AR-15 style rifle and began shooting at Black people as they shopped for their groceries. He live-streamed the violent attack. The victims ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included eight shoppers. Gendron had recently purchased the rifle and drove about three hours from his home in Conklin, New York, determined to kill as many Black people as possible. Before the massacre, he published a manifesto online that featured references to white supremacist and antisemitic conspiracies. He targeted the neighborhood where the Tops store was located because the area has the “highest black percentage that is close enough to where I live,” he wrote.
New York’s domestic terrorism law is a relatively new one, proposed by former governor Andrew Cuomo in August 2019 following the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that targeted Mexicans. The law was named the Josef Neumann Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act after Josef Neumann, who died after an anti-Semitic attack in Monsey, New York. It was signed into law on April 3rd, 2020, and went into effect on November 1st, 2020.
While the state of New York does not have the death penalty, federal law allows it, meaning that there is a chance Gendron could still face execution if convicted.
