Payton Gendron

The backstory

Gendron stands convicted of the ten murders under New York law, by his own guilty plea.¹ The federal charges are a separate case: he has pleaded not guilty to them and is presumed innocent of them unless a jury finds otherwise.⁷ Where this section describes the federal case, the facts are allegations by prosecutors or findings assumed true by courts for the purpose of pretrial rulings.⁵

The shooting

According to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office, on the afternoon of May 14, 2022, Gendron drove to the Tops Friendly Markets on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo intending to kill five or more people because of their race or perceived race.¹ The district attorney says that, wearing tactical gear and carrying an assault weapon, he shot four people in the parking lot, three of whom died and one of whom survived.¹ Inside, according to the district attorney, he exchanged gunfire with an armed security guard, who died at the scene, and then shot eight more people, six of whom died and two of whom survived.¹ The district attorney says Buffalo police arrived within about two minutes of the first 911 call and took him into custody.¹ The security guard was Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo police officer.⁷³¹

The ten people killed were Roberta A. Drury, Margus D. Morrison, Andre Mackniel, Aaron W. Salter Jr., Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Heyward Patterson, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young and Ruth Whitfield.³³¹ All ten were Black.⁵ The three people wounded survived.¹

The federal indictment, as described by the Justice Department, alleges that he used a Bushmaster XM rifle.² Drawing on the federal criminal complaint and its affidavit, which it was required to assume true for the appeal, the Second Circuit wrote that he arrived at about 2:30 p.m., wore tactical gear, carried a .223-caliber rifle and livestreamed the attack as he moved through the store.⁵ District Attorney John Flynn said the crimes were proven in part through video from Gendron’s helmet camera.²⁵ According to the federal complaint as reported by NPR, after shooting one victim he aimed his rifle at a wounded white employee, said “sorry” and moved on.²⁷

Planning and motive

The Second Circuit, again drawing on the complaint, wrote that the attack “did not result from a spur-of-the-moment decision”: Gendron planned it for months, with the stated goals of killing as many Black people as possible and inspiring others to commit similar crimes.⁵ According to the court, he chose the store because it was in a ZIP code where a high percentage of Black residents of Buffalo lived, and he used a diagram of the store’s interior to plan the attack.⁵ The court said he described the plan and its goals in a manifesto and an online journal.⁵ The government alleges he shared links to his journal, manifesto and livestream with about 65 people on Discord before the attack.⁴ The federal complaint, as reported by NPR, alleges his motive was “to prevent Black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race.”²⁷

The state case

Gendron pleaded guilty, as charged, in Erie County Court on Nov. 28, 2022, to one count of domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate in the first degree, ten counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted second-degree murder as a hate crime, and one count of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.¹ The remaining ten counts of second-degree murder as a hate crime were dismissed as a result of the plea.²⁶ As the judge named each victim and asked whether he had killed that person because of their race, he answered “yes” and “guilty,” the AP reported.²⁵ Flynn said Gendron was the first person in New York convicted of the hate-motivated terrorism charge.²⁵ One of his lawyers called the plea “a condemnation of the racist ideology that fueled his horrific actions on May 14.”²⁵

On Feb. 15, 2023, Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan sentenced him to life in prison without parole.¹ The terrorism count carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole.²⁴ In court he said: “I did a terrible thing that day. I shot and killed people because they were Black.”²⁴ The judge told him, “There can be no mercy for you, no understanding, no second chances.”²⁴ During a victim impact statement, a man in the gallery lunged toward Gendron and was restrained; the hearing paused and then resumed.²⁴

The federal charges

A federal criminal complaint was filed June 15, 2022, and a grand jury returned an indictment on July 14, 2022.⁶ The 27 counts are 14 counts under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (ten of hate crimes resulting in death, three involving an attempt to kill the three injured people, and one alleging an attempt to kill other Black people in and around the store) and 13 counts of using, carrying or discharging a firearm in relation to those crimes.² The indictment alleges he acted “willfully causing the death of the victims because of their actual and perceived race and color,” and that he acted “after substantial planning and premeditation to commit an act of terrorism.”² Judge Vilardo has described the death-eligible counts as ten counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death and ten counts of using a firearm to commit murder.⁷

The death-penalty notice

On Jan. 12, 2024, the government filed notice that it would seek death on Counts 11 through 20, the firearm-murder counts.³⁵ It was the first new capital prosecution authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland.²³ No jury has found any of the factors the notice alleges. They are:

• Statutory aggravating factors (alleged): that he knowingly created a grave risk of death to one or more persons in addition to the victims; that he committed the offense after substantial planning and premeditation to cause the death of a person; that, as to Counts 12, 13, 14, 15 and 19, the victim was “particularly vulnerable due to old age and infirmity”; and that he intentionally killed and attempted to kill more than one person in a single criminal episode.³
• Non-statutory aggravating factors (alleged): the injury, harm and loss to the victims’ families and friends; serious physical and emotional injury to the three surviving victims; that his “animus toward Black persons played a role in the killings”; that he attempted to incite violent action by others; and that he selected the store “in order to maximize the number of Black victims of the offense.”³

On Sept. 16, 2025, Vilardo struck four of the factors: injury to the surviving victims, the racially motivated killings factor, the attempt to incite violence and, as a separate factor, the selection of the site, which he found was covered by the planning factor.⁴ He kept the others, limited the grave-risk factor and set procedures for victim impact testimony, including a limit of two witnesses for each person killed.⁴ The government appealed. On July 27, 2026, a Second Circuit panel reversed on the three factors at issue and reinstated them, holding that a jury “may, however, weigh a defendant’s racist motive” while not considering the victims’ race, and directing a limiting instruction.⁵ Judge Richard Sullivan wrote for the panel that “the government is not seeking to punish Gendron because he expressed odious views.”⁵¹⁸

The defense’s position

His federal defenders do not dispute that he committed the killings; their stated aim is to avoid a death sentence.¹² In a statement they acknowledged that he “caused tremendous loss and suffering at the Tops grocery store by taking ten lives,” and said, “Nothing will change the fact that Payton Gendron will die in prison.”⁷ They have said they will offer mitigating evidence about him at trial, without saying what it is.⁷ He offered to plead guilty to the federal charges in exchange for a life sentence; the Justice Department rejected the offer.⁷²³

The defense has challenged the death notice on several grounds. In June 2024 his lawyers argued he should be exempt from the death penalty because he was 18 at the time, citing research that parts of the brain tied to decision-making keep developing into the early 20s, and separately argued that the punishment is “prohibited by the fifth and eighth amendments.”²² The U.S. Attorney’s Office calendar lists evidentiary hearings on the age claim set for February 2026 as canceled.⁶ The outcome of the age challenge was not found in the sources reviewed. In April 2025 Vilardo denied a motion arguing that prosecutors had misused the grand jury, finding the defense had not shown the questioning influenced the decision to seek death.²¹ In August 2025 the defense argued that Black and Hispanic people were “systemically and significantly underrepresented” in the lists used to choose the grand jury; prosecutors said the arguments “fail both as a matter of law and fact.”²⁰ A ruling on that motion was not found in the sources reviewed. In March 2026 Vilardo denied a defense request to move the trial to Rochester because of news coverage in Buffalo, writing that the victims’ interest in attending far outweighed the likelihood of a longer jury selection.¹⁹

Jury selection

Jury selection, first set for Aug. 17, 2026, was moved to Oct. 13 while the two sides settled which experts could examine Gendron.¹⁷ About 1,200 prospective jurors completed questionnaires; roughly 700 remained after the two sides struck others.⁹ On Oct. 12, the day before in-person questioning began, the defense moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the trial jury pool “fails to reflect a fair and reasonable cross section of the community” because Black residents are underrepresented.¹¹⁸

On Oct. 13 Vilardo questioned the first group of 12 prospective jurors together and then one by one, about their exposure to the case and their views on the death penalty.⁸¹⁰ He told them the trial “is not a referendum on race,” and that if any juror finds life in prison appropriate, he must impose a life sentence.⁷ Defense questioning has also asked whether jurors would weigh his age at the time of the attack as mitigation.¹⁶ Gendron was in court, unshackled.¹⁰

Personal backstory

Early life and schooling

Gendron is from Conklin, N.Y., in Broome County, about 200 miles from Buffalo.¹²⁹ He attended Susquehanna Valley High School and graduated in late June 2021, according to the Broome County District Attorney.²⁸ A SUNY Broome Community College spokesperson said he was enrolled there from fall 2021 to March 2022.³⁰ He was 18 at the time of the shooting.⁷

Family

According to the federal complaint as reported by NPR, a handwritten note found in his bedroom apologized to his family for “this attack.”²⁷ No on-record statement from his family was found in the sources reviewed.

Mental health

In June 2021, while a high school senior, he made comments about murder and suicide that led the school to contact the New York State Police, according to Broome County District Attorney Michael Korchak.²⁸ Korchak said no specific threat was made against the school or students and firearms were not mentioned; troopers took him to a hospital for evaluation, and he was released.²⁸ Police said he was not charged and had no further contact with law enforcement after the evaluation.²⁹

The defense has retained a psychiatrist, a psychiatric neurologist and a speech pathologist, and prosecutors were allowed their own experts for rebuttal testing.¹⁷ His lawyers plan to call four experts to testify about his “mental condition on the issue of punishment.”¹⁵ No diagnosis has been testified to or found by a court in the sources reviewed.

In custody

At his state sentencing he said, “Looking back now I can’t believe I actually did it,” and appeared to cry at times during victim statements.²⁴ After his plea, his lawyers suggested he regrets his crimes but did not elaborate.²⁵ He is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service during the federal case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.⁶