Buffalo shooting suspect charged with federal hate crimes over massacre of 10 Black people
Buffalo mass shooting suspect Payton Gendron has been charged with federal hate crimes over the massacre of 10 Black people in a grocery store last month.
The Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it had filed a slew of 26 charges against the 18-year-old self-proclaimed white supremacist and racist.
The charges include 10 counts of hate crime resulting in death, three counts involving bodily injury and attempt to kill, 10 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder and in retaliation to a crime of violence and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in retaliation to a crime of violence.
Prosecutors said the hate crime charges were brought because “Gendron’s motive for the mass shooting was to prevent Black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race, and to inspire others to commit similar attacks”.
If convicted, he faces the death penalty.
The charges were filed the same day Attorney General Merrick Garland is set to travel to Buffalo to visit the site of the mass shooting and meet with victims’ family members and survivors of the attack which tore apart the predominantly Black community.
