Buffalo supermarket shooter sentenced to life in prison

The gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racially-motivated shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket last May was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.

Payton Gendron, 19, received a life sentence without the possibility of parole, after pleading guilty in November to state murder and domestic terrorism charges. Gendron is the first person in New York state to be charged with domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which carries an automatic life sentence.

“There is no place for you or your ignorant, hateful and evil ideologies in a civilized society,” Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan said, as she handed down Gendron’s sentence. “There can be no mercy for you, no understanding, no second chances.”

“The damage you have caused is too great, and the people you have hurt are too valuable to this community,” she added. “You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again.”

Gendron drove three hours from his home in Conklin, N.Y., to the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, to commit the massacre last spring. 

The self-proclaimed white supremacist planned the attack for months, visiting the store on multiple occasions to scout out the location. He showed up on May 14 dressed in tactical gear and equipped with a modified semiautomatic rifle that could be loaded with high-capacity magazines.

Gendron also faces federal hate crime and firearm charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys said in December that he would be willing to plead guilty to the charges if prosecutors take the death penalty off the table.

Earlier in Gendron’s sentencing hearing, as several family members of the victims delivered statements in the presence of the shooter, a man lunged at the 19-year-old gunman. Officers temporarily rushed Gendron out of the courtroom amid the commotion.