“There is no place for you or your stupid, hateful and evil ideology in a civilized society,” the judge said. The young white supremacist who killed ten African Americans in May in a supermarket in Buffalo, in the north of the United States, was sentenced on Wednesday to an irreducible sentence of life in prison. “You will never see the light of day again as a free man,” Judge Eagan concluded, addressing Payton Gendron.
Previously, the families of the victims expressed their pain. “I pray to God that they don’t kill you (in prison). I forgive you, not for your sake but for mine and that of the black community,” Brian Talley said. A man then suddenly got up and tried to rush towards Gendron but was stopped by the guards.
“I did a terrible thing”
Payton Gendron, who had pleaded guilty, apologized to the families: “I cannot express how much I regret all the decisions that led to my actions on May 14. I did a terrible thing that day. I shot and killed people because they were black. Looking back, I can’t believe it. I believed what I read online and acted out of hate. I know I can’t bring back (the victims). I wish I could. I don’t want anyone to be inspired by my actions. »
Payton Gendron was 16 years old when he started frequenting the “/pol/” forum (politically incorrect) of the 4chan site during the confinement, in the spring of 2020. He gradually radicalized, until he sowed death in a supermarket in A black Buffalo neighborhood in May 2020 armed with a semi-automatic rifle. A killing he had broadcast live on Twitch, like the killer from Christchurch, New Zealand.
Gendron had left a 180-page racist manifesto online in which he cited the conspiracy theory of the “great replacement” of the white population by minorities to justify his action.