Payton Gendron, the shooter who shot at a supermarket in the US city of Buffalo, in the state of New York, pleaded guilty this Monday to various state charges, including terrorism, hate crime and murder.
The 19-year-old, who indiscriminately opened fire at a store in a majority-black neighborhood and posted the attack on a social media stream, has admitted to one count of hate-motivated act of domestic terrorism, ten counts of first-degree murder, degree, three for attempted murder and one for possession of weapons.
The guilty plea assumes there will be no state trial and Gendron will not appeal, defense attorney Brian Parker has indicated. In addition, the charges carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, as reported by CNN.
As confirmed by police sources at the time, the young man arrived at the supermarket car park at 2:30 p.m. (local time). After getting out of the “very heavily armed” vehicle and starting to broadcast live what he was about to do, he shot four people who were in the vicinity of his car.
After this first shooting, the young man entered the supermarket and managed to kill a security guard before continuing to shoot up to 13 people inside. Eleven of the thirteen people hit by the bullets were black.
Gendron is a supporter of the conspiracy theory known as ‘the great replacement’ which claims that political elites use migration to reduce the white population, according to what the Buffalo Police could verify, which shared a 180-page letter written by the suspect.
After the shooting, described as a “racist” act, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, assured that white supremacism is a “poison” for American society. “Evil came to Buffalo and has come to too many places, manifested in gunmen who slaughtered innocent people in the name of a hateful and wicked ideology,” he said.
