Dear Reader...
Payton S. Gendron, the alleged mass shooter, has been charged with 26 federal hate crimes, some of which carry the death penalty, in connection with the massacre of ten Black individuals at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket last month.
Attorney General Merrick Garland visited the shooting site and talked with the families of the victims when the charges against the White suspect were announced.
Garland said after meeting with family members, "No one in this country should have to live in fear that they will go to work or shop at a grocery store and will be attacked by someone who hates them because of the color of their skinskin."
"Gendron's goal for the mass shooting was to prevent Black people from replacing white people and extinguishing the white race, and to motivate others to do similar crimes," according to a criminal complaint filed by authorities in the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York. Gendron allegedly devised elaborate plans for the assault, according to the lawsuit.
On May 14, Gendron is suspected of killing 13 people ranging in age from 20 to 86 at the Tops Friendly Market. Buffalo police reported that eleven of the victims were black and two were white.
According to a criminal complaint, the 18-year-old suspect faces 10 counts of hate crime resulting in death, three counts of hate crime causing bodily injury, ten counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a violent crime, and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during a violent crime.
The death penalty is a possibility on the last three counts.
Garland, who has put a halt to federal executions while the Department of Justice examines policies and processes, would have to decide whether to pursue the death sentence.
When asked if federal prosecutors in this case will pursue the death sentence, Garland responded, "The Department of Justice has a set of protocols that it follows... The survivors and their families would be consulted."