Federal death penalty sought for Buffalo, N.Y., mass shooter
Jan. 12 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department confirmed Friday it will pursue the death penalty on federal charges against the man who shot and killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket in 2022.
In a filing, the Justice Department pointed to the racial motivation behind the crime as one of the chief factors in seeking the death penalty against Payton Gendron.
"The United States believes the circumstances in Counts 11-20 of the Indictment are such that, in the event of a conviction, a sentence of death is justified," the Justice Department filing reads.
"A sentence of death is justified under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3591-98, and that the United States will seek the sentence of death for these offenses."
Armed with a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle on May 14, 2022, Gendron live-streamed the shooting at a Buffalo supermarket.
State prosecutors with the Erie County District Attorney's Office said he illegally modified the weapon, wrote 180 pages of racist statements and openly admired other mass shooters.
In November 2022, Gendron pleaded guilty in state court to 15 charges after initially facing 10 counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of second-degree murder as a hate crime, and three counts of attempted murder as a hate crime, along with other charges.
The state conviction comes with a mandatory sentence of life in prison and marked the first time in New York State history a person had been convicted of those charges.
Gendron still faces 27 federal counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death and a hate crime involving bodily injury. He pleaded not guilty in July to those charges.
The now 20-year-old's legal team previously had mentioned a willingness on their client's part to plead guilty to the federal charges if the death penalty was taken off the table.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in July 2021 instituted a moratorium on carrying out federal death penalty sentences.
Friday's news brought mixed reaction.
"He does deserve to die. But I want something worse than that," Mark Talley, whose 62-year-old mother Geraldine Talley was killed in the rampage, told reporters Friday.
But the head of a group opposed to the death penalty said capital punishment will do nothing to address what led to the shooting.
"The government's decision to pursue a death sentence will do nothing to address the racism and hatred that fueled the mass murder," Equal Justice USA CEO Jamila Hodge told UPI in a statement.
"Ultimately, this pursuit will inflict more pain and renewed trauma on the victims' families and the larger Black community already shattered by loss and desperately in need of healing and solutions that truly build community safety. Imagine if we invested in that instead of more state violence."
