Jury selection begins in federal hate-crime trial of Buffalo supermarket gunman
Jury selection is beginning in the federal trial of Payton Gendron, the white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket on 14 May 2022. Already serving life in prison after his conviction on state murder charges, Gendron faces more than two dozen federal hate-crime counts, over a dozen firearms charges and a possible death sentence.
His lawyers will not dispute his guilt, instead presenting mitigating evidence in an effort to prevent his execution. Victims’ relatives and survivors are divided over the death penalty, though all face the lasting consequences of an attack regarded as the deadliest mass shooting targeting Black people in modern US history.
Gendron was 18 when he drove more than 200 miles from Conklin to the Tops Friendly Markets store on Jefferson Avenue and fired about 60 rounds from a semiautomatic rifle at shoppers and employees. He wounded three people and surrendered outside. Investigators found writings detailing plans to frighten non-white and non-Christian people into leaving the US and promoting the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory.
The case also highlights the broader persistence of anti-Black violence and online radicalization. US law-enforcement agencies reported more than 2,800 anti-Black hate-crime incidents in 2025, nearly three times the number targeting Latinos, even as total reported hate crimes fell 7% from 2024.
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