This is the first time a grand jury has validated charges of hate-motivated domestic terrorism, which has only been enacted since 2020.
Payton Gendron, 18, has received more charges than his age: 25, they read him in court this Thursday. But none of them will revive the ten fatalities he left behind in a Buffalo supermarket.
He is charged with those ten premeditated murders, in addition to ten hate crimes, three attempted murders, criminal possession of weapons and first-degree domestic terrorism motivated by hate crimes. It is the first time a grand jury has validated charges of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which has only been in the legislation since 2020. As a result, the judge has ordered that he must remain in prison without bail, at least until he returns to his custody the following July 7.
The grand jury’s job was simple. Gendron drove nearly four hours to find an all-African-American neighborhood where, in his own words, he wouldn’t miss the mark when photographing blacks he found in the aisles of the Tops supermarket in Buffalo. He left all that and much more in writing in a 180-page manifesto that will also make it very easy for the jury that eventually prosecutes him.
What’s still in the pipeline and will be harder to prove is whether social networks were complicit in his massacre. New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that “it is horrifying that a person can post detailed plans to commit such hateful acts without any consequences and broadcast it to the world,” she lamented. The public prosecutor is investigating the possible legal consequences this could have for the platforms he used, but in doing so is exploring virgin ground where much is still illegal.
Source: La Verdad
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