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The white gunman who fatally shot 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo supermarket earlier this year pleaded guilty on Monday to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Payton Gendron, 19, entered the plea on Monday in a courthouse roughly two miles from the grocery store where he used a semiautomatic rifle and body armor to carry out a racist assault he hoped would help preserve white power in the US.
Gendron, who was handcuffed and wore an orange jumpsuit, occasionally licked and clenched his lips as he pleaded guilty to all of the most serious charges against him, including murder, murder as a hate crime and hate-motivated domestic terrorism, which carries an automatic sentence of life without parole.
He answered “yes” and “guilty” as the judge in his case, Susan Eagan, referred to each victim by name and asked whether he killed them because of their race. Gendron also pleaded guilty to wounding three people who survived the May attack.
Many of the relatives of those victims sat and watched, some dabbing their eyes and sniffling. Speaking to reporters later, several said the plea left them cold. It didn’t address the bigger problem, which they said is racism in the US.
