NewzFor Wayne Jones Sr., discussing the horrific supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York, in which a white supremacist killed 10 people, including Jones' mother, Celestine Chaney, has taken over much of his life these past four years.He can numbly list talking points for media and gun violence panels. But thinking about her absence each day is one reason Jones does not want to see Payton Gendron sentenced to death.“I really think that he should just sit and have to think about it year after year after year and just be miserable,” said Jones, who plans to attend the trial. “When I was younger, I probably was more prone to say ‘kill him.’ But, at this point, I mean, he's still got well another 20 to 30 years of appeals.”The final phase of jury selection began Tuesday in the federal trial in which Gendron faces a potential death penalty if convicted.
The attack at the Tops Friendly Market in 2022 is believed to be the deadliest hate-motivated shooting targeting Black people in the U.S. by a lone gunman in the past century.Gendron has pleaded not guilty to two dozen federal hate crime charges and more than a dozen firearms charges. Life imprisonment is typically the alternative to death in a federal capital murder case.
Gendron is already spending life in prison after pleading guilty to state murder charges in a 2023 trial where he tearfully admitted to the crimes and renounced his past views.His defense team does not dispute his guilt. Their sole objective is to ensure Gendron is spared from execution.“Nothing will change the fact that Payton Gendron will die in prison,” the federal public defender’s office said in a statement. “At trial, we will offer mitigating evidence about Payton that the jury needs to consider in making its decision.
Nothing we say or do is intended to be disrespectful or insensitive to the victims, the survivors, or their loved ones.”Some victims' family members, however, are not entirely against the death penalty.“I’ve never been like out here like, ‘Yay! Go for the death penalty.’ That’s never been me,” said Buffalo Common Council member Zeneta Everhart, who ran for office over a year after her son, Zaire, survived the shooting. “Ten people died that day in an egregious way and in an awful, terrible, traumatic way.”Her son, now 25, and the two other survivors had their lives irrevocably altered, she added.How racist conspiracy theories …
Jury selection is set to begin on Tuesday in the federal hate crimes trial of Payton Gendron, accused of the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting in 2022.
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