Buffalo mass shooting suspect indicted on federal hate crimes charges

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - A grand jury has indicted the suspect accused of carrying out a devastating mass shooting in Buffalo, New York with federal hate crimes and firearms charges, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Payton Gendron, 19, faces 14 hate crimes charges, including 10 counts of hate crimes resulting in death, and 13 firearms offenses concerning the May 14 shooting at a Tops grocery store.

The indictment returned by the grand jury alleges that Gendron entered the supermarket and opened fire with a Bushmaster XM rifle, shooting several individuals in the store, killing 10 Black victims and injuring three others. Two of those injured were white, while one was Black.

Gendron allegedly planned the attack for months and selected the grocery store because it was in an area with the highest concentration of Black residents near his hometown.

When announcing the federal hate crimes charges, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed in June to "be relentless" in the Justice Department's efforts to pursue them and to "hold accountable those who perpetrate" hate crimes.

Federal hate crimes charges carry the possibility of the death penalty. Asked if prosecutors would pursue capital punishment, Garland demurred last month, saying the agency’s internal procedures would be followed and victims' families would be consulted.

He declined to say whether the victims' families with whom he spoke wanted him to pursue the death penalty.

Authorities have said Gendron was motivated to carry out the attack by a far-right racist ideology known as “replacement theory,” which has been at the center of growing white supremacy in the US.

It was cited by a gunman who targeted Latinos in El Paso, Texas in 2019, and another mass shooter who opened fire in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania synagogue the year prior. It was also at the heart of the Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shooting.

Gendron allegedly wrote “the great replacement” on the assault rifle that he used to carry out the shooting, said authorities.