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Buffalo Gunman Sentenced to Life in Emotional and Dramatic Hearing [1]

['Jesse Mckinley', 'Dan Higgins']

Date: 2023-02-15  

BUFFALO — The gunman in a racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket last year was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole on Wednesday, after apologizing for his attack amid a torrent of raw emotions from the victims’ families, including one man who lunged at him in court.

“You will never see the light of day as a free man again,” the judge, Susan Eagan, said after reading a statement about the harmful effects of institutional racism and white supremacy, calling it an “insidious cancer on our society and nation.”

The sentence reflected the outcome of a guilty plea to 10 counts of first-degree murder and a single count of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which carries a penalty of life imprisonment without parole. He was the first person in New York convicted of that domestic terrorism charge.

Judge Eagan’s sentence came after a brief apology by the gunman, Payton Gendron, 19, who said he was “very sorry” for the attack and blamed online content for the shooting rampage on May 14, in which 10 people were killed, all of them Black, and three people injured. He said he didn’t want to inspire other racist killings.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/nyregion/buffalo-shooting-gunman-sentencing.html

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