(Headline USA) Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday in the federal trial in which Payton Gendron faces a potential death penalty for his alleged attack at the Tops Friendly Market in 2022, which killed 10 people and is believed to be the deadliest shooting targeting black people by a lone gunman in the last century.
Gendron is facing over two dozen federal hate crime charges and more than a dozen firearms charges. He 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 is not going to 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 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.”
It’s unclear what Gendron’s defense lawyers will present to the jury, but one mitigating factor may be that their client appeared to have been monitored by law enforcement before his attack. Indeed, it’s been reported that Gendron may have been communicating with a “retired” federal agent as little as 30 minutes before his shooting spree.
🚨The DOJ says there's classified information in Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron's case.
I wonder if it has anything to do with him communicating w/ a "retired federal agent" right before his attack?
First reported by @gcraig1 https://t.co/9MnLQESeIZ pic.twitter.com/KwiWP2dPBk
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) May 8, 2026
History
On May 14, 2022, a then-18-year-old Gendron drove over 200 miles from his home in Conklin, a predominantly white and rural town, to Buffalo. He fired around 60 shots from a semiautomatic rifle at employees and shoppers. Video revealed Gendron apologized to a white store worker after shooting him in the leg. He surrendered to police as he exited the supermarket.
Investigators found past social media posts and other writings by Gendron dedicated to planning an attack to frighten people who were non-white and non-Christian into leaving the U.S. He also promoted a “great replacement theory” that people of color will replace white people through higher birth rates and immigration.
The victims who were killed were all Black and between ages 32 and 86. Besides Chaney, they included Geraldine Talley, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young, Andre Mackneil, church deacon Heyward Patterson, Ruth Whitfield, Roberta Drury, Margus Morrison and Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo police officer who was working as a security guard.
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. Justice Department in 2024 decided to pursue a death sentence. It was the first capital case overseen by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had previously put a moratorium on the death penalty.
Gendron and his legal team relayed that he would only plead guilty in his federal case in exchange for a life sentence. The Justice Department rejected that proposal.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
