Payton Gendron

- August 9, 2024

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Payton Gendron was born on June 20, 2003. He was born and raised in Broome County, New York. He is infamous for the 2022 Buffalo shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket, which resulted in 10 total deaths of African-Americans. He chose the specific area he targeted because it had the highest percentage of black people. He was 18 years old at the time of the shooting. Gendron had also previously threatened an attack at Susquehanna Valley High School. The threat was reviewed by state authorities and resulted in a mental health evaluation.

He wrote and released online a 180-page manifesto that primarily references the topic of mass immigration.
You can read his manifesto here.

On May 14, 2022, Payton Gendron arrived at a Tops Friendly Supermarket in Buffalo, New York in the East side of the neighbourhood in Buffalo. He had a heavy weapon and was wearing tactical gear and a helmet. He also had a camera because he was livestreaming. He livestreamed the attack on Twitch under the name of "jimboboiii", but the livestream was shut down in under two minutes. Before entering the store, Gendron shot four people in the parking lot, killing three of them. When he entered the store, he came across a retired police officer who was working as the security guard. The guard fired multiple shots at Gendron, but Gendron was wearing tactical gear, so he wasn’t seriously injured by them. The guard was then killed by Gendron. He then shot eight more people, six of them died.

Many customers and workers of the store were in the store's break room to hide from Gendron. They barricaded the door with a heavy desk. Others hid in the milk cooler. The milk cartons in the cooler blocked the bullets fired by Gendron. He also aimed at a white person but then apologized and did not shoot.

Around 2:30pm, the Buffalo police recieved a call, where someone reported shots being fired at the store. Police and firefighters arrived at the scene shortly after and reported bodies lying outside the building. A dispatcher then started informing the officers of an active shooter at the store. According to the Buffalo Police Commissioner, Gendron ultimately returned to the front of the store, where he encountered police. He raised his gun to his neck when he saw the cops, but they convinced him to drop the gun and surrender. He was then placed under arrest.

The Motive

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, around May 2020, he starting using 4Chan (an image board) out of boredom. He began consuming racist content and became a white supremacist — he was 17 at the time. It was on 4Chan where he was first exposed to the Great Replacement Theory. The conspiracy theory says that there's a plot by Jews to replace white people through immigration and demographic changes. His interests in firearms led Gendron to 4Chan's weapon board, /k/. Other boards he visited also include /out/ and /pol/. As Gendron consumed more of the content, he was overtaken by a sense of despair.

In his manifesto he wrote, "Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore, I told myself that eventually I was going to kill myself to escape this fate. My race was doomed and there was nothing I could do about it." He came across Brenton Tarrant and Gerdon figured that Brenton Tarrant's actions were justified and agreed with him. Brenton Tarrant was a livestream mass shooter. "Finally I thought to myself, perhaps there is a chance that we can combat this. Maybe there is a chance that we can take control and prevent our genocide. Maybe we can combat the hedonistic, nihilistic, and individualist insanity that has taken control western thought. I then found other fighters, like Patrick Crucius, Anders Breivek, Dylann Roof, and John Earnest. These men fought for me and had the same goals I did." He felt awakened.

Court

On November 17, 2022, Payton Gendron agreed to plead guilty to all state charges. On November 28, 2022, he pled guilty to fifteen state-level counts— ten counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder motivated by hate, criminal weapons possession, and domestic terrorism motivated by hate. On February 15, 2023, Gendron recieved 11 life sentences without the possibility of parole. An additional 90 years was placed on his sentences for three counts of attempted murder, as well as criminal possession of a weapon.

Gendron apologized to the families of the victims before recieving his life sentence.

"I’m very sorry for the pain I’ve forced on the victims and their families to suffer through. I’m very sorry for stealing the lives of your loved ones. I cannot express how much I regret all the decisions I made that led up to my actions on May 14. I did a terrible thing that day. I shot and killed people because they were Black. Looking back now, I can’t believe I actually did it. I believed what I read online and acted out of hate and now I can’t take it back, but I wish I could. I don’t want anyone to be inspired by me and what I did”, said Gendron, without any apparent emotion.

Due to his lack of emotion, a family member yelled out "“You don’t mean any of that s—. F— out of here!". Some even said that his apology was insincere and was only said to avoid getting the death penalty. Earlier in the sentencing hearing, a man lunged at Gendron during victim impact statements.

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