Federal prosecutors to pursue death penalty against Buffalo supermarket shooter

Federal prosecutors announced on Friday that they intend to pursue the death penalty against the perpetrator of a 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket.

In a court filing, prosecutors argued that the actions of Payton Gendron, the white supremacist who intentionally killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo’s predominantly Black East Side neighborhood, rose to the level warranting the death penalty under federal law. Prosecutors pointed not only to the high level of planning involved with the attack, but also the nature of the attack itself, as grounds for capital punishment.

Gendron, who was 18 at the time of the shooting and pleaded guilty to the murders, reportedly wrote a manifesto calling himself a white supremacist and was radicalized on online far-right forums. The case was declared a hate crime by federal prosecutors in May 2022.

Friday's filing marked the first time President Joe Biden's Department of Justice has sought out a new death penalty sentencing and is a break with the administration’s purported stance towards the death penalty.

Biden pledged to abolish the federal death penalty as a presidential candidate in 2019, though he has not taken action to strike it from many sections of the federal criminal code.

In 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a moratorium on federal executions and a review of the department's usage of capital punishment, without giving a timetable. The moratorium does not prevent prosecutors from seeking death sentences, but the DOJ has largely refrained from pursuing it.

But in cases of hate crimes, Biden’s Justice Department has left that card at its disposal. In 2023, a federal jury sentenced the perpetrator of a 2018 mass shooting at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, synagogue to death, the first death sentence of the Biden administration. It also went ahead last year with an effort to get the death sentence against an Islamic extremist who killed eight people on a New York City bike path, though a lack of a unanimous jury meant that prosecution resulted in a life sentence.

The Justice Department has declined to pursue the death penalty in other mass killings, including against the gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

White House spokesperson Jeremy Edwards said Friday that the Buffalo shooting was an "an absolute tragedy, and the president continues to pray for the victims of this unspeakable act of violence." He added that "the president has long talked about his views on this issue broadly, but we would leave it to the appropriate authorities to speak to individual cases and sentencing decisions," pointing reporters to the Justice Department.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul voiced her support for the Justice Department's decision, saying during a press conference that "the community is still reeling from the atrocity of 10 innocent people on May 14 in 2022 simply going about shopping and were targeted, targeted because of the color of their skin by a white supremacist who was radicalized online."

Republican candidates for president, meanwhile, have embraced the death penalty as part of tough-on-crime messaging. When former President Donald Trump announced his presidential bid, he called for the use of the death penalty against alleged drug dealers. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has also increased the availability of the death penalty, amending state law to allow for executions of child rapists and removing a requirement that juries must unanimously determine that the death penalty is warranted during the sentencing stage of a trial.

Adam Cancryn and The Associated Press contributed to this report.