On Friday, the Justice Department announced in a court document that it plans to ask for the death penalty for Payton Gendron. Gendron, who was 19 at the time, is responsible for a shooting at a Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022, where 10 people lost their lives. The shooting was racially motivated.
“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 filing stated.
Gendron’s lawyers previously mentioned he might plead guilty to federal charges if the death penalty wasn’t an option.
Federal prosecutors explained why they think the death penalty is justified. They claim Gendron purposely killed ten people and also caused harm to others, participated in actions leading to death, and the shooting was driven by blatant racism, according to the Justice Department.
“Payton Gendron expressed bias, hatred, and contempt toward Black persons and his animus toward Black persons played a role,” the filing said.
“10 counts of hate crimes resulting in death, three counts of hate crimes involving an attempt to kill three injured individuals, and one hate crimes count alleging that Gendron attempted to kill additional Black people in and around the Tops grocery store,” reads a statement from the Department of Justice.
In July 2022, a federal grand jury returned a 27-count indictment against Gendron, accusing him of 14 violations of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Thirteen firearms violations were also brought against him.
Garland has handled two cases seeking the death penalty during his time in office. One case involved Sayfullo Saipov, who killed eight people with a truck in Manhattan in October 2017.
The second case was against Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018. Saipov was not sentenced to death by the jury, but Bowers received the death penalty.
It’s important to note that both of these cases were initiated by the previous administration. However, Garland stopped executions with a moratorium in July 2021, and this pause is still in effect.
The government has decided to pursue the death penalty after more than a year of discussions within the Justice Department. Attorney General Garland has expressed his concerns about the death penalty before, and President Biden campaigned to end it at the federal level.
However, with no official policy from the Biden administration, DOJ officials have been debating when it’s appropriate to recommend the death penalty, especially in extreme cases of hate-driven mass acts of terror.
The family members of the victims met with prosecutors on Friday and were informed that the DOJ is seeking the death penalty. Mark Talley, whose mother Geraldine Talley was a victim, said that some family members are happy about the decision, but he personally feels that if the defendant, Gendron, is sentenced to death, it’s like he’s getting away too easily.
Mark Talley stated, “For me, I want something worse than that,” in front of the federal courthouse located in Buffalo.
“I want him to torture, I want him to suffer, I want everything he ever loved to suffer. I want friends and family that he loved to suffer. I want possibly the worst thing that I can ever imagine to possibly happen to him.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I think he’s getting off the hook getting the death penalty because he won’t get that suffering that I want,” he further added. “As long as I’m alive, whether God gives me 20, 30 or 60 years, I wanna be able to see him to suffer.”
Gendron entered a guilty plea to 15 crimes, including murder and attempted murder, and was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole in February 2023 on state charges.
For each of the 10 victims he killed on May 14, 2022, at the Tops market, Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and for each of the three victims he shot and injured, she handed him a sentence of 25 years.
Gendron made a brief apology at the sentence hearing, stating that he was “very sorry for all the pain” he caused by “stealing the lives of your loved ones.”
“I did a terrible thing that day. I shot people because they were Black,” Gendron stated.
