Death penalty didn't help me heal after my mom was killed. Buffalo families deserve peace.
There are no words to describe the devastation and pain caused by the horrific acts committed in Buffalo, New York on May 14, 2022. I understand the anguish the families of those killed are surely still feeling.
That’s because I have received that phone call, attended those funerals, and sat in a similar courtroom, under similar circumstances. Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, murdered my mother, two cousins and six others in 2015 at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. For that, he was sentenced to death.
I would never tell anyone how to feel in such a situation. I can only share my own story. Having lived through this awful experience – the loss of my loved ones, followed by a trial in which we had to hear about the terrible details of the murders again and to revisit all of the pain – I can say that Mr. Roof’s death sentence did not bring my family closure. It only prolonged our agony.
How can families of victims not want vengeance for what the killer has done? I was very conflicted throughout Mr. Roof’s trial. It brought me new misery to see such a young man with so much hate in his heart. But by the time the sentencing phase ended, I felt that killing him would do nothing to help me heal. After much prayer and asking God to help me, I knew in my heart that killing him would not solve anything.
Because he was sentenced to death, we are still suffering in ways that could have been avoided. More than five years ago, Mr. Roof’s first appeal was rejected. It was two years after his crime, but just the experience of that appeal being a headline brought back all of the horror of his violence, renewing our wounds.
Charleston church shooting: My mom was killed in the Mother Emanuel church shooting. We must disarm racism and hate.
Death penalty didn't help my family heal
Every time our case is in the news, I am returned to that terrible day and the searing pain of the weeks, months and years that followed. It almost feels as if he gets to continue the terror he intended to create, because the focus is on him, while his victims’ families wait for the supposed finality of an execution that may never come.
This is the unintended but very real consequence of the death penalty. Rather than helping my family heal, Dylann Roof’s death sentence has done the opposite.
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Based on my experience and that of many others whom I know, some of the families of the victims in the Buffalo mass shooting may discover that a sentence of life in prison for Mr. Gendron would bring them more peace in the end. After all, life without the possibility of parole might better be understood as death by incarceration. I certainly agree that such killers should never be free.
By not taking a possible death sentence off the table, I believe that Attorney General Garland has denied a turning point for the families that would have allowed them to move toward healing sooner. We can never get our loved ones back. But for me, not having the uncertainty of a death sentence hanging over me would make it easier to focus on the positive memories of those I lost.
I pray that God will give the Buffalo families comfort, and that God will give Payton Gendron the opportunity to understand and accept responsibility for what he has done and that he can find a way to use the remainder of his life for good, even in prison.
Rev. Sharon Risher is the Daughter of Ethel Lance, and the cousin of Tywanza Sanders and Susie Jackson, victims in the 2015 massacre at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. She is Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Action.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Buffalo shooter may get death penalty. It won't heal victims' families
