A young white supremacist who killed ten black people in May 2022 in a supermarket in Buffalo, in the northern United States, was sentenced today to irreducible life imprisonment, in a hearing where there were cries and screams of rage from relatives of the victims. .
Payton Gendron19, had pleaded guilty in November to racist murders and acts of terrorism before the New York State court, and appeared for the first time before the relatives of his victims.
During the hearing, he had to be escorted out of court when a man pounced on him, while Barbara Massey, sister of Katherine, one of the defendant’s victims, yelled “I want to strangle you.”
“I understand the emotion, I understand the anger, but it can’t take place in court. We’re better than that!” Judge Susan Eagan said. after a brief recess in the hearing, the AFP agency reported.
Before sentencing him to life imprisonment, Judge Eagan gave the floor to the relatives of his victims.
Kimberly Salter, who lost her husband Aaron, a supermarket security guard attacked, came to the hearing dressed in red and black, “the colors of bloodshed” and “our mourning.”
Buffalo supermarket mass shooter Payton Gendron is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Judge tells him “You’ll never see the light of day as a free man ever again” pic.twitter.com/i9iuLvCgym
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 15, 2023
“We all know the hate and the motives for your racist crime, but we are here to tell you that you have failed,” said Simone Crawley, whose grandmother, Ruth Whitfield, died while shopping. “Despite our injuries, we will not let you win this war.”
In a brief speech, Gendron said he was sorry for “the pain” he caused.
“I can’t say how sorry I am for all the decisions that led me to do something terrible on May 14, when I shot and killed people just because they were black.”
“I believed things I read online and acted out of racist hate” but “I don’t want to be an inspiration to anyone” added.
Payton Gendron is also accused of “racist crimes” for federal justice, which does not rule out requesting the death penalty.
On May 14, after months of preparation, Gendron showed up at a Buffalo supermarket dressed in combat gear, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a camera that broadcast his actions live over the Internet.
“You will never see the light of day as a free man again,” the judge told Payton Gendron, the author of the shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022https://t.co/kDioEvlIIA
— CNN in Spanish (@CNNEE) February 15, 2023
In the parking lot and inside the store, he fired at customers and employees. He killed ten people between the ages of 32 and 86, and injured three others.
In his messages and in a racist, supremacist and conspiratorial manifesto attributed to him, the young man had written several months before the massacre that he wanted to kill black people and that he was targeting a poor and isolated neighborhood of Buffalo because of its high proportion of African-Americans.
Before the massacre, he made a reconnaissance trip to Buffalo, a city located 300 km from his home.
The massacre shocked the United States, but ten days later another semi-automatic rifle massacre by an 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas.
These murders, the list of which has continued to grow ever since, have reignited the recurrent and innocuous debate about the lack of regulation of firearms in the United States.
Since January 1, the Gun Violence Archive site has already reported six armed attacks that left at least four dead, and 71 shootings, with a balance of at least four injured.