Gunman who killed 10 Black people in N.Y. supermarket wants federal charges dropped, says grand jury was too white

Attorneys for the white supremacist gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket told a judge Thursday that the federal charges against him should be dropped because there weren’t enough Black people and other minority groups on the grand jury that indicted him.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Attorneys for the white supremacist gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket told a judge Thursday that the federal charges against him should be dropped because there weren’t enough Black people and other minority groups on the grand jury that indicted him.

Payton Gendron did not attend the hearing, during which his lawyers argued that his constitutional rights to a grand jury drawn from a cross section of the community were violated.

At the hearing’s start, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo noted Gendron’s objection to the prevalence of white people on the panel seemed “a little incongruous” in the hate crimes case. He did not immediately rule on the motion.

Gendron could face the death penalty if convicted in the 2022 mass shooting at a Tops supermarket, which he targeted because of its location in a primarily Black neighborhood. Those killed ranged in age from 32 to 86. Three others were wounded.

Gendron already is serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty in November 2022 to multiple state charges, including murder.