Emotions reached a boiling point for victims' families who were in attendance at Wednesday’s sentencing hearing for Buffalo, New York, mass shooter Payton Gendron.
Gendron, 19, was sentenced to life in prison, though he was briefly escorted out of the courtroom when a man charged him and had to be restrained by courtroom guards.
The scene unfolded as Barbara Massey, whose sister Katherine died in the shooting, was delivering an emotional victim impact statement.
“My sister Katherine Massey was a great person. Kat didn’t hurt anybody,” she said, before a man dressed in gray clothing lunged at Gendron and police intervened.
“You don’t know what we’re going through,” the man shouted as he was led away, as quoted by The Associated Press via Twitter.
Prior to the statement, Gendron could be seen weeping as family members of the victims read their statements, with one calling him a “cowardly racist.”
After the court hearing resumed, Gendron was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his May 2022 attack on the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, which left 10 dead and 3 wounded.
“I’m very sorry for the pain I’ve forced on the victims and their families to suffer through,” Gendron said in a statement that he read aloud to the court.
“I did a terrible thing that day,” Gendron continued. “I shot and killed people because they were Black. Looking back now, I can’t believe I actually did it. I believed what I read online and acted out of hate and now I can’t take it back, but I wish I could. I don’t want anyone to be inspired by me and what I did.”
The teenager wore bullet-resistant armor and a helmet equipped with a livestreaming camera as he carried out the attack, which was specifically aimed at Black shoppers and workers.
His racist writings were found later in a 180-page manifesto he posted online, where he described himself as a fascist, a white supremacist and an antisemite. Gendron expressed in the document that he targeted Buffalo because it had the “highest Black percentage that is close enough to where I live.”
He also wrote that he hoped the attack would help preserve white power in the U.S.
While a life prison sentence has been handed down for Gendron, he also faces separate federal charges from the U.S. Justice Department that could carry the death penalty. New York state does not have the death penalty.
“I anticipate that the reason why he said what he said today was to save his life in federal court,” Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said, as reported by WIVB, Buffalo’s local news station.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown added, “What the defendant had to say today, to me, is much too little, much too late.”
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