Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The man suspected of killing 10 people and wounding three others in a racially motivated mass shooting on May 14 at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo pleaded guilty to all charges he faced at the state level.
Payton Gendron was back in Erie County Court on Monday, as he pleaded guilty to 15 counts against him, including 10 counts of first degree murder, a charge of committing a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, three counts of second degree attempted murder as a hate crime, and second degree criminal possession of a weapon. In addition, his 10 counts of second degree murder as a hate crime coincide with the guilty pleas of the 10 murder charges, bringing the count total to 25.
While Gendron's next court appearance for sentencing will come on Feb. 15, 2023, his one guilty plea for a domestic act of terrorism automatically carries with it a life sentence in prison without parole.
During Gendron's court appearance on Monday, a number of the victims' family members were in attendance for the guilty plea. This included the families of victims Ruth Whitfield, Geraldine Talley and Pearl Young, as well as survivor Zaire Goodman.
After Monday's guilty plea, the families got a chance to voice their thoughts on what they saw and heard from the shooter who carried out his racially motivated attack more than six months ago.
"Sitting in the courtroom today and being kind of perpendicular to the terrorist. for a while, I just watched him," said Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Goodman, who was shot in the neck and survived the shooting. "I go to these court hearings and things, because I just need to be in the space of the person who tried to kill my son. I don't know why I need to be near him, but I do. But as he was talking, it was the sound of his voice, it kind of annoyed me internally because it was a very nonchalant voice. Although the questions they were asking him were 'yes' or 'no' or 'guilty' or whatever, the way he said it was very nonchalant. And, to me, it's because he's been treated that way."
Monday not only brought on an overwhelming sense of grief for the families, as the details of the gruesome attack were explained in the courtroom, but also brought on some outrage with the way Gendron was presented with him being handcuffed and chained in his orange jumpsuit.
For Mark Talley, son of Geraldine who was the final victim shot and killed during the course of the two-minute attack by Gendron, he says a lot of anger came over his body during the course of the guilty plea.
"I was angry how the judge was constantly talking to this gentleman like he was a little pre-pubescent sixth grade boy. I hate how they showed the pictures of how he looked, and then you see him in the courtroom. You seen what a sixth grade, middle school hair cut, clean shave, looking real scrawny and nervous surrounded by a bunch of policemen," said Talley during a press conference after the guilty plea in the offices of Connors LLP. "I was angry that they didn't have him look at the faces of the victims' [families] that he ruined and scarred for life. I hate how when people refer to him, they call him a little boy or young man. Last time I looked in America, an 18-year-old, you're an adult, because I know if the roles were reversed, let alone me committing an act of terrorism, let me just punch the first white person I see on the street, I highly doubt the judge would be calling me a young man."
A number of the victims' family members pointed out the way they felt Gendron was perceived in the courtroom, speaking out against the way he came to the court session compared to the way some Black victims of other racial attacks were perceived in the past.
"I remember what the media did to Trayvon Martin. I remember the smiling face that he had and we heard and we were all so sad. And then I saw the media change him and put him in a hoodie. But they did the exact opposite today," said Pam Young, daughter of Pearl, who was one of the 10 victims killed at the Tops. "They made [Gendron] look, as Mark said, like a pre-pubescent teenager. He was a man. We need to park here, America needs to park here, and look at ourselves and ask ourselves, 'Why are we doing that? Why is it that we change the narrative when it's a Black boy? Why is it that our Black boys when they're 10 and nine-years-old, they're called men, but he can be 19 and we consider him a boy still?' No, there's a problem with that."
Garnell Whitfield Jr., son of Ruth, who was the oldest victim of the Tops mass shooting, also spoke on Monday following Gendron's guilty plea and wanted no part in spending any energy talking about him. Instead, he wanted to focus that energy on the problems in America that are much bigger than what transpired on May 14 in Buffalo.
"This is not a happened chance. This was all planned, this was intentional. Our communities are intentional. This is different," said Whitfield. "I've been around the country with other families who have gone through similar experiences, where their loved ones had been shot down, but Buffalo was different. And what makes Buffalo different is the condition of this community before May 14. There's a reason why he targeted this community. It's because it's segregated, it's under-resourced, underfunded, it's discriminated against, it's criminalized. All of those things lead to May 14, and that's what we've got to talk about.
"I heard a lot about justice today, there is no justice unless we deal with that. There is no justice unless we deal with what facilitated these murders. We've got to talk about that. We've got to talk about the conditions that are in our communities, that exist intentionally."
Whitfield goes on to add that the members of society need to humanize each other until everyone is seen as human beings and treated as equals deserving of everyone's breath and lives. Until that happens, he says nothing's going to change here.
"My mother didn't deserve this. None of these people deserved this. But yet, here we are begging, literally begging for those who are in power to do something about it," Whitfield said.
As a cancer survivor, Whitfield made the analogy of the decision he had to make years ago as to how he wanted to attack his cancer and give himself the greatest quality of life and the greatest chance to live. He said that decision was to have surgery to cut the cancer out and kill the cancer.
As he related his bout with cancer to the cancer of white supremacy in the United States, his question is simple: What is America going to do to properly address it?
"We've been putting band-aids on it, we've been very kind with each other and we've been pleasant and all that. Let's stop pretending. The problem is white supremacy," Whitfield said. "This country was founded on it, and it's still here today. It's the fabric of our society, it's why our community looks like this today. Let's stop pretending. If we're not going to talk about that, then America is not going to survive. It is not going to live. Just like me, I had to make a decision. And sometimes, in order to move forward, you've got to take a step backwards. Sometimes you've got to cut something out in order to let the rest of it live. And we're not wanting to do that with white supremacy. We're not wanting to call it out.
"If we've got people in power in places who want to be nice and politically correct and pretend like everything's OK, America is not going to survive. And if you pay attention, it's dying as we speak. America, as we know it, is dying as we speak. And my question to you is what are we going to do about it?"
As Gendron spoke briefly during his guilty plea on Monday, the families in attendance certainly could not help but feel that his tone reflected the current problems of the nation with racism. It was his voice that made Everhart feel sick, but also showed her that the U.S. has a problem on its hands.
"This country is inherently violent, it is racist, and his voice showed that to me, because he didn't care. You could hear him in his voice, he was just a robot. To me, America showed up in that terrorist today, because that is a part of America that Black people see every day."
"They say America's national pastime is baseball, or America is as old as apple pie. The truth is, racism is America's national pastime," Talley added. "You can look almost through every decade since America separated from the British and see racism has been a part of it. Racism will always be a part of American society, no matter what people try to tell you. From the past, from now, and to the future. So, once again, I'm happy he's going to jail. I mean, it is what it is. That was automatically going to happen with the evidence amounted against him. What would make me happy is if America acknowledges its racist history, and the racism currently going on now."
As for what can be taken from Monday's guilty plea and the actions of what has transpired over the last six months, Young feels the nation really needs to take the time to think about what happened, why this racially motivated attack happened, and the other injustices happening to the Black community.
"Let's think about why he was taken into custody when others can have their hands up and they're not taken into custody and they end up on the ground with bullets in them," Young said. "My mother [Pearl] had bullets and her, I did not know the full extent until I came here today, and I had been saying to myself, 'Pam, maybe somehow she was taken immediately.' But that's not what I heard today. What I heard was that she was shot a couple of times before the fatal shot. What do you think? How does that make me feel? Now I've got to go back and re-live six months of what I thought, and now it's changed. And he gets to come in looking like a little teenage boy. No. We've got to park here, America."
In addition to the sentencing for Gendron at the state level, he still has his case presiding at the federal level, with no known date of when all parties will return to court. It is also still to be determined whether or not the federal government and Attorney General Merrick Garland will pursue the death penalty against the shooter.
Attorney Ben Crump, who helps represent a number of the victims' families following the mass shooting, says he intends to send a letter to Garland and his team asking them to make sure the full weight of the federal government speaks to this racially motivated attack. And while Crump says he has not subscribed to the death penalty for Gendron going forward, he wants the most harsh sentence for the heinous act of violence carried out at the Tops just because of the color of their skin.
While the want for the death penalty was not brought up by any of the families during Monday's press conference, Whitfield says his biggest concern is the true story and the full story of what happened will not and did not get out in the proper light.
"What's important is that the history of what happened on 5/14 is told, completely and honestly so it's a part of our history," Whitfield said. "So many times in America down through the years, they've cut us out of the history books, they're taking books off the shelves now. They've not including us as a part of the fabric of this of this nation. And I want to make sure that does not happen with 5/14 or anything else going forward. It's time that we write our own narrative. It's time that we control our own narrative, and that's what this is about for me."
As for Talley, his hope is for Gendron to get sentenced and be forced to remain in the City of Buffalo or close by to always be reminded of what he has done to a community and a region.
"I want him for the rest of his life to constantly have to think his life is in danger. I want him to have to live with that fear. I want that fear to eat him up inside, because that's the same fear my mother [Geraldine] went through," Talley said. "She was the last victim, I saw the video when it first started leaking, and I saw the two shots going into the side of her head. So I want him to feel the fear that my mother felt, that something horrific is going to happen to him. And I think the best chance of that is going to happen in Erie County. It may sound dark, may not be the right thing to say. I really don't care. I want that pain to eat at him every second of every day for the rest of his life, and I think the best chance of that happening is right here in the holding center, or someplace in Erie County, some jail in Erie County."
Hear more from Monday's press conference with the victims' families available in the player below:
