Payton Gendron, the white supremacist who killed ten black people in a supermarket in the U.S. city of Buffalo, New York, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The 19-year-old, who opened fire indiscriminately at a store in a majority-black neighborhood and posted the attack in a social media livestream, had already pleaded guilty in November to various charges, including terrorism, hate crime and murder.
During the trial, Gendron has acknowledged his guilt and apologized to the victims, assuring that he did something «terrible» that day, while, for his part, there have been tense moments when some of the family members remembered their loved ones.
«I shot and killed people because they were black. Looking back now I can’t believe what I did. I believed what I read on the Internet and acted out of hatred. I can’t take it back now, but I wish I could,» Gendron said during the session, as picked up by NBC News.
Meanwhile, a survivor of the attack, Christopher Braden, who was shot in the leg, said during the session that he has post-traumatic stress disorder, has had to face four surgeries for his injuries and that the shooter’s actions «changed his life.»
During one of those victim statements, a man in a gray hoodie lunged at Gendron, although security forces acted quickly and removed him from the courtroom, CNN has reported.
Gendron also faces 27 federal charges including murder, discharging a firearm and hate crimes. If convicted, he faces another maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.
THE SHOOTING The young man arrived at 2:30 p.m. (local time) at the supermarket parking lot. After getting out of the vehicle, «very heavily armed» with tactical gear, and starting to broadcast live, he shot four people who were standing in the vicinity of his car.
After this first shooting, the young man went inside the supermarket and managed to shoot down a security guard and then continued to shoot thirteen other people inside, eleven of whom were black.
Gendron is a proponent of the conspiracy theory known as ‘the great replacement’ which claims that political elites use migration to reduce the white population, according to the Buffalo Police, who shared a 180-page letter written by him.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
