Federal judge rejects Buffalo shooter's motion to dismiss death penalty

A federal judge has denied another motion from the defense of Payton Gendron, the man who killed 10 Black people in a mass shooting at a Buffalo Tops supermarket in May 2022, to allow federal prosecutors to continue seeking the death penalty.

An 18-year-old Payton Gendron wearing military gear and livestreaming with a helmet camera opened fire with a rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo, killing 10 people and wounding three others in what authorities described as “racially motivated violent extremism.”

The gunman wore body armor and military-style clothing during the attack on mostly Black shoppers and workers at Tops Friendly Markets. For at least two minutes, he broadcast the shooting live on the streaming platform Twitch before the service ended his transmission.

The gunman shot four people outside the store, three fatally. Inside the store, a security guard, who was a retired Buffalo police officer, fired multiple shots, but a bullet that hit the gunman’s bulletproof vest had no effect. The gunman then killed the guard, who was identified as Aaron Salter. Gendron then stalked through the store shooting other victims.

Police entered the store and confronted the gunman in the vestibule. At that point the shooter put the gun to his own neck. Two officers talked him into dropping the gun and Gendron eventually surrendered to police.

According to court documents, Gendron's lawyers argued that the government used the grand jury process to compel irrelevant evidence and that the government's grand jury questions covered a "wide range of topics having no relationship [to the charges under consideration by the grand jury or the special findings it was asked to make]."

The court ruled that Gendron and his defense team cited no precedent and dismissed the motion "without prejudice."

Jury questionnaires for a federal trial will be sent out in October of this year. The defense's new deadline for seeking a plea of insanity is Sept. 15.

Gendron is currently serving a lifetime prison sentence after pleading guilty to state charges.

Source: spectrumlocalnews.com, Staff, April 23, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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