November 28, 2022

Buffalo Shooter Pleads Guilty to Hate Crime and Murder Charges

He is looking at life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Joshua Bessex, File/AP

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The 19-year-old white man who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, has pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, and domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

In May, Payton Gendron, then 18, live-streamed his attack on a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo. In a manifesto posted online shortly before the massacre, the shooter reportedly espoused the “Great Replacement” theory, which plays on racist fears that the United States’ white population is being supplanted by people of color. As we noted at the time, similar talking points were espoused on Fox News, among other right-wing outlets.

The news comes on the heels of two recent high-profile mass shootings: a massacre at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs that left five people dead, and another at a Chesapeake, Virginia, Walmart that killed six.

The shooter still faces federal hate crimes and weapons charges, for which the Justice Department could seek the death penalty.

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