Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday in the federal hate crimes trial of Payton Gendron, the 19-year-old accused of killing 10 people in a racially motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022. The trial could result in the death penalty for Gendron, who is already serving a life sentence on state murder charges.
Gendron faces more than two dozen federal hate crime counts and multiple firearms charges related to the attack at the Tops Friendly Markets grocery store on Jefferson Avenue. Prosecutors allege the shooting was driven by white supremacist ideology and targeted Black victims, marking one of the deadliest attacks against Black people in recent U.S. history.
On May 14, 2022, Gendron traveled over 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin, a predominantly white rural community, to Buffalo. Once there, he opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle, discharging approximately 60 rounds at shoppers and employees. Video footage captured by police body cameras shows Gendron apologizing to a white employee he wounded before surrendering.
Investigations revealed that Gendron had long planned the assault, posting online statements promoting the baseless “great replacement theory,” which falsely claims that white populations are being systematically replaced by people of color through immigration and higher birth rates. His writings expressed a desire to intimidate non-white and non-Christian communities into leaving the United States.
All of the 10 victims killed in the attack were Black and ranged in age from 32 to 86. They included Geraldine Talley, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young, Andre Mackneil, deacon Heyward Patterson, Ruth Whitfield, Roberta Drury, Margus Morrison, Aaron Salter—a retired Buffalo police officer serving as a security guard—and Timothy Chaney. Survivors such as Chaney and others continue to grapple with the lasting trauma from the event.
Family members and survivors hold varied views on sentencing. Zeneta Everhart, a Buffalo common council member whose son Zaire survived the shooting, expressed a nuanced stance on the death penalty. She acknowledged the severity of the crime and its profound impact on her family and the community but declined to openly advocate for capital punishment. Gendron’s defense team has indicated it will not concede guilt at trial and plans to present mitigating evidence aimed at avoiding a death sentence.
The attack underscores ongoing issues with racially motivated violence in the United States. According to federal statistics, Black individuals have consistently been the primary targets of reported hate crimes since 1991. In 2025, law enforcement agencies documented more than 2,800 anti-Black hate incidents, a figure nearly three times higher than those targeting Latino communities, despite an overall 7% decline in hate crimes from the previous year.
Experts note that attacks like the Buffalo shooting and the 2015 Charleston church massacre share common characteristics, including white male perpetrators inspired by extremist online manifestos. Hate crime analyst Brian Levin described this pattern as part of a disturbing cycle of radicalization that both references prior mass attacks and encourages future violence.