Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old charged with killing 10 people in upstate New York on Saturday, appeared at Erie County Courthouse in Buffalo on Thursday, where he was heckled by one of the people gathered.
Gendron, who wore an orange jumpsuit and a face mask, was only in court briefly after a grand jury indicted him on first-degree murder.
He was silent throughout the proceeding before being remanded and sent back to jail. As he was being led out someone shouted, “Payton, you’re a coward!”
ADVERTISEMENT
Gendron has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. He has not yet had any federal charges filed, but the FBI is still investigating the possibility of pursuing hate crime charges. On Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a call with law enforcement officials and community leaders, “I want to be clear, for my part, from everything we know, this was a targeted attack, a hate crime, and an act of racially motivated violent extremism.”
Ten people were killed and three others wounded in the Saturday shooting at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Eleven of the 13 victims were Black.
During the call with Wray, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said the hate-filled manifesto that Gendron appeared to have posted online in the hours leading up to the horrific attack “substantially mirrored” the manifesto posted online by Brenton Tarrant, the gunman who killed 51 worshippers at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019. Tarrant also livestreamed the massacre and ranted about replacement theory in his manifesto.
“Both discuss immigration and population and issues at length for replacing the white race in population growth,” Garcia said.
On Monday, local police confirmed that Gendron had previously traveled more than three hours from Conklin, New York, to the Tops Friendly Market grocery store to scope out the area. “The individual was here in early March,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said, according to ABC News, which also reported that a security guard confronted Gendron as he was taking down details about the location.
Gendron’s alleged victims were Roberta A. Drury, 32; Margus Morrison, 52; Andre Mackneil, 53; Aaron Salter, 55; Geraldine Talley, 62; Celestine Chaney, 65; Heyward Patterson, 67; Katherine Massey, 72; Pearl Young, 77; and Ruth Whitfield, 86. Zaire Goodman, 20, and Jennifer Warrington, 50, were both released from a hospital after being treated for injuries while Christopher Braden remains in hospital.
If convicted, Gendron could spend his life in prison without parole. He remains in the custody of the Erie County Sheriff’s Office on suicide watch. His next scheduled court appearance is June 9.
