BUFALO, New York (AP) – A white man accused of killing 10 blacks in a racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket was indicted by a grand jury on Wednesday on a state charge of domestic terrorism and hate crime, which will carry a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment .
Peyton Hendron is due to be charged Thursday with a new 25-count indictment, based on a previous murder charge prepared in the early hours of the May 14 shooting.
The 18-year-old has already been charged with attempting to kill three people who were shot during the attack but survived, as well as using a weapon to commit a crime.
He pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors told a judge on May 20 that the grand jury had voted to indict Hendron, but did not disclose the allegations, saying proceedings were ongoing.
Hendron’s lawyer, Brian Parker, said he had not seen the indictment and could not comment, adding that the prosecution and defense counsel’s lawyers had been barred by a judge from discussing the case in public.
The appalling nature of the crime and the number of victims probably already guarantee a life sentence if Hendron is convicted. New York has no death penalty. But the addition of a state charge of terrorism could resonate further and help authorities send a message of violent extremism.
The Indictment of Domestic Terrorism – Domestic acts of hatred motivated in the first instance – accuses Hendron of killing “because of the perceived race and / or color” of his victims.
“This man was motivated by hatred for people he had never met for no reason other than the color of their skin,” said Buffalo’s lawyer, John Elmore, who represents the families of the victims, Katherine “Kat” Massey, 72. and Andre McNiel, 53. Elmore said he hoped a verdict on each charge.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed the Domestic Terrorism Act for Hate Crimes in August 2019 after a mass shooting of Mexicans at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. The measure, called the “Internal Terrorism Act for Joseph Neumann’s Hate Crimes” following an attack on a rabbi’s home in Muncie, New York, was signed on April 3, 2020 and entered into force on November 1, 2020.
The law extended a previous statute on domestic terrorism, adopted after the September 11 terrorist attack, which was largely intended as a way to prosecute international extremism.
Prosecutors said Hendron drove about three hours to Buffalo from his home in Conklin, New York, intending to kill as many black people as possible. Shortly before the attack, he published documents outlining his views on the white race and revealing that he had been planning the attack for months.
An armed man carrying an AR-15 rifle he had recently purchased opened fire on Saturday afternoon at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo.
Murder charges have been filed against each of the victims, who ranged in age from 32 to 86, including eight customers, a store security guard and a church deacon who drives shoppers to and from the grocery store.
The shooting, followed 10 days later by a mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uwalde, Texas, has revived the national debate on gun control.
McNiel was in the store to buy a birthday cake for his 3-year-old. Massi was a community activist who supported gun control and fought racism, Elmore said.
“Taking her life away from a white extremist at the hands of a weapon of mass destruction is extremely upsetting to me,” he said. He is part of a team of lawyers investigating potential lawsuits against gun and bulletproof vest manufacturers used by the shooter, as well as social media platforms.
The attack was broadcast live by a camera mounted on a helmet.
“Somehow we will find justice for the Massi family, for the McNiel family and all those others who have been affected by this tragedy,” Elmore said.
Federal authorities are also investigating the possibility of accusing Hendron of hate crimes, who apparently described in detail his plans and racist motivations in hundreds of pages of writings he published online shortly before the shooting.
Amanda Drury, who lost her 32-year-old sister Roberta Drury, said she left it to the legal system to say what charges were appropriate in the case.
“I will continue to believe in the justice system,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Michael Sisak and Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.
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