US: Teen gets life for racist Buffalo supermarket massacre

A teenage American white nationalist responsible for live streaming himself committing an act of mass murder in an upstate New York supermarket last year was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday.

Payton G.*, 19, killed 10 Black people who were shopping at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York. 

He pleaded guilty in May to a state charge of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which has a mandatory penalty of life without parole. In November, he admitted the charges against him including 10 counts of murder in the first degree, three attempted murder charges and one count of criminal possession of a weapon.

Payton G. cried during the hearing and told the court he was "very sorry" for his actions, apologizing in a brief statement interrupted by one person shouting "we don't need" his words and bolting out. He still faces dozens of federal hate crime charges that make him eligible for the death penalty.

In sentencing Payton G. to life in prison, Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan told him, "There can be no mercy for you, no understanding, no second chances." 

What did victims' relatives say in court?

Some relatives of the victims expressed anger while others sought spiritual guidance and offered prayers for the gunman.

Simone Crawley, the granddaughter of Ruth Whitfield who died in the massacre, called the shooter "a cowardly racist."

Wayne Jones Sr., who is the son and only child of victim Celestine Chaney, told Payton G., "You've been brainwashed."

"You don't even know Black people that much to hate them. You learned this on the internet, and it was a big mistake," Jones added.

A niece of victim Geraldine Talley, Tamika Harper, said she wanted the gunman to pray for forgiveness.

"Do I hate you? No. Do I want you to die? No. I want you to stay alive. I want you to think about this every day of your life," Harper said.

"Think about my family and the other nine families that you've destroyed forever," she added.

Payton G. looked at her as she spoke, then put his head down and cried.

Kimberly Salter, the widow of Aaron Salter, the security guard who took aim at the shooter during the assault, said her family wore red and black to the sentencing "for the blood that he shed for his family and for his community, and black because we are still grieving."

Christopher Braden, who worked at the supermarket and was shot in the leg, said the memories of the attack " haunt me in my sleep and every day."

At one point, an unidentified man in the courtroom audience charged at Payton G. after shouting, "You don't know what we're going through!" 

The individual was restrained and security personnel rushed the gunman out of court, resulting in a pause during the hearing lasting several minutes.

What happened during the attack?

For months, the teen planned an attack on Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo because it was in a Black neighborhood. 

On May 14 of last year, he drove more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) from his hometown of Conklin to murder 10 Black people in the supermarket while wearing body armor and wielding a modified AR15 rigged with illegal high-capacity ammunition magazines. 

Prosecutors say he sought to kill as many Black people as possible that day.

Before entering the store, he shot four people in the parking lot, killing three. Inside, he killed a retired police officer working as a security guard who shot back before being killed.

The shooter livestreamed the attack on Twitch using a camera attached to a helmet he wore. 

Eleven of the 13 people he shot were Black and two were white, with victims ranging in age from 32 to 86-years-old. His victims included a church deacon, a community activist, a man shopping for a birthday cake, a grandmother of nine and the mother of a former fire commissioner in the city.

Within hours of the mass shooting, police arrested Payton G. and located a 180-page manifesto outlining the racist motivations for the shooting.

In it, he referred to the "great replacement theory," a conspiracy theory against immigration that plays to racist fears about non-white people dominating and overwhelming a white, Western world. He wrote that he hoped his homicidal attack would preserve white power.

In court Tuesday, his brief statement said in part, "I believed what I read online and acted out of hate, and now I can't take it back, but I wish I could, and I don't want anyone to be inspired by me."

The 19-year-old is the first to be convicted in the state of New York on the charge of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which was introduced in 2020. His defense attorney said he plans to plead guilty to federal charges in the hopes of avoiding the death penalty.

*Editor's note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals and urges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.

ar/rs (AFP, AP, Reuters)