Buffalo shooting suspect charged with domestic terrorism and murder

“Grand jury’s 25-count indictment includes attempted murder as a hate crime and weapons possession

A grand jury on Wednesday charged the white 18-year-old accused of fatally shooting 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket with domestic terrorism motivated by hate and 10 counts of first-degree murder.

The suspect, who has been in custody since the 14 May shooting, is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Erie county court.

The 25-count indictment also contains charges of murder and attempted murder as a hate crime and weapons possession.

Payton Gendron had previously been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting, which also injured three people. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors told a judge on 20 May the grand jury had voted to indict him but did not disclose charges, saying proceedings were ongoing.

The domestic terrorism charge accuses the suspect of killing “because of the perceived race and/or color” of his victims.

The former governor Andrew Cuomo proposed the domestic terrorism hate crime law in August 2019, in the wake of a mass shooting targeting Mexicans at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. The measure, called the Josef Neumann Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act after an attack at a rabbi’s house in Munsey, New York, was signed into law on 3 April 2020, and took effect on 1 November 2020.

The charge, domestic acts of terrorism motivated by hate in the first degree, is punishable with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Murder charges were filed for each of the victims, who ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included eight shoppers, the store security guard and a church deacon who drove shoppers to and from the store with their groceries.

The gunman, carrying an AR-15-style rifle he had recently bought, opened fire on Saturday afternoon shoppers at the only supermarket in the predominantly Black neighborhood.

The shooting, followed 10 days later by a mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers inside an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, has renewed a national debate about gun control and violent extremism.

Federal authorities also are investigating the possibility of hate crime charges against Gendron, who apparently detailed his plans and his racist motivation in hundreds of pages of writings he posted online shortly before the shooting. The attack was livestreamed from a helmet-mounted camera.

Gendron drove about three hours from his home in Conklin, New York, intending to kill as many Black people as possible, investigators have said.

His attorney, Brian Parker, said he had not seen the indictment and could not comment, adding that prosecution and defense attorneys had been barred by a judge from discussing the case publicly. 

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