Buffalo Survivor's Mother Says 'This Is Domestic Terrorism' as Federal Death Penalty Trial Opens

Jury selection has begun in the federal death penalty trial of Payton Gendron, the self-described white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022, as families of the victims remain divided over whether he should be executed.

Gendron is serving life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to state charges arising from the attack at Tops Friendly Market on 14 May 2022. The separate federal case could result in a death sentence if jurors find him guilty and later determine that execution is warranted.

Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire Goodman survived after being shot in the neck, said prosecutors should pursue the death penalty in this case. She has also acknowledged that justice could be served even if Gendron is not executed.

'This isn't a shooting over a robbery or a domestic violence situation. This is domestic terrorism,' Everhart said.

Families Divided Over Death Penalty

Everhart said her son still has shrapnel in his body and argued that the case should be treated as an act of racist violence rather than an ordinary crime. 'Ten people died that day in an egregious way and in an awful, terrible, traumatic way,' she said.

Other relatives of the victims have different views. Wayne Jones, whose mother Celestine Chaney was killed, said he would rather Gendron spend the rest of his life confronting what he had done.

'I really think that he should just sit and have to think about it year after year after year and just be miserable,' Jones said.

Garnell Whitfield, whose mother Ruth Whitfield was also killed, said he was more interested in what the trial could reveal about Gendron's radicalisation and the conditions that helped shape the attack. 'Those are the things that I care about,' Whitfield said.

What Gendron Faces in Federal Court

Gendron faces 27 federal counts: 14 related to hate crimes and 13 involving firearms. The hate crime charges include 10 counts resulting in death, three involving attempts to kill injured people and one alleging an attempt to kill additional Black people in and around the supermarket.

His defence team does not plan to contest his guilt in the federal case. Instead, it will present mitigating evidence in an effort to persuade jurors to impose life imprisonment rather than death. Prosecutors rejected an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

In July, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated three aggravating factors prosecutors may present in the capital-sentencing proceedings. They concern the impact on survivors, Gendron's racist motive and his alleged attempt to encourage further violence.

The ruling reversed a lower court decision that had excluded those factors; it did not determine what sentence Gendron should receive. Jury selection is expected to take six to eight weeks, with evidence due to begin once a jury has been seated.

How Online Radicalisation Featured in the Attack

Gendron was 18 when he drove more than 200 miles from Conklin, New York, to Buffalo on 14 May 2022. He opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle at shoppers and employees at Tops Friendly Market, killing 10 Black people and injuring three others. He livestreamed the attack online.

Investigators found writings and social media posts in which he promoted the baseless 'great replacement theory', a racist conspiracy theory claiming that white people are being replaced through immigration and higher birth rates among people of colour.

Hate crime analyst Brian Levin has said Black people have been the most frequently targeted group in FBI hate crime data since the bureau began collecting it in 1991. FBI data for 2025 recorded more than 2,800 anti-Black hate crime incidents, nearly three times the number targeting Latinos. Overall reported hate crime incidents fell by 7 per cent from 2024 to 2025.

Levin has described Gendron as fitting a pattern of young, mostly white men who carry out targeted massacres and use manifestos referencing earlier attacks to encourage further violence. The 2022 shooting followed the 2015 Charleston church massacre, in which white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black worshippers.