ERIE COUNTY, N.Y. — A judge on Wednesday sentenced the gunman who killed 10 Black people in a hate-fueled shooting at a Buffalo supermarket to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he pleaded guilty last year.
Payton Gendron, 19, pleaded guilty in November to charges including murder, attempted murder as a hate crime and domestic terrorism motivated by hate. On May 14, 2022, he killed 10 Black people and injured three others at the Tops Friendly Markets grocery store in Buffalo, more than 200 miles from his home in Conklin. Officials said he spent years planning the attack, which he also livestreamed.
“There can be no mercy for you. No understanding. No second chances,” Judge Susan Eagan told Gendron before delivering her sentence in court. “The damage you have caused is too great and the people you have hurt are too valuable to this community. You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again.”
Victims and their families gave emotional statements ahead of Gendron sentencing, sharing their rage and pain in the aftermath of the shooting. At one point, Gendron was escorted out of the courtroom after someone in the audience rushed at him. Later in the hearing, a spectator shouted after Gendron delivered his statement to the court.
In an emotional statement, Wayne Jones Sr. — whose mother, Celestine Chaney, was killed in the shooting — said that he felt sorry for Gendron’s family.
“You’ve been brainwashed,” he said. “You don’t even know Black people that much to hate them. You learned this on the internet, and it was a big mistake.”
Speaking in court, Gendron apologized “for all the pain I forced the victims and their families to suffer through.”
“I did a terrible thing that day,” he said. “I shot and killed people because they were Black. Looking back now, I can’t believe I actually did it. I believed what I read online and acted out of hate, and now I can’t take it back, but I wish I could.”
Christopher Braden, a Tops employee who was shot in the leg, said he suffers from PTSD after seeing Gendron kill people. He continues to undergo surgeries to deal with his injury, which nearly cost him his left leg.
“Visions haunt me in my sleep every night and most days,” he said. “I cannot get those memories out of my head.”
Authorities said Gendron donned body armor and a tactical-style helmet before driving to the front of the Tops grocery store and opening fire on people in the parking lot. Inside the store, he exchanged gunfire with a Black security guard, who was killed, before firing shots at other store employees and customers.
Police took him into custody after he had fired about 60 shots, officials said.
Ruth Whitfield, 86; Pearl Young, 77; Katherine Massey, 72; Heyward Patterson, 67; Chaney, 65; Geraldine Talley, 62; Aaron Salter, 55; Andre Mackneil, 53; Margus Morrison, 52; and Roberta Drury, 32; died in the shooting.
Gendron is also facing federal hate crime charges connected with the Buffalo shooting.
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