The white gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket was charged Wednesday with federal hate crimes and could face the death penalty, reports the Associated Press. The criminal complaint filed against Payton Gendron coincided with a visit to Buffalo by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The attorney general was expected to meet with the families of the people who were killed. Gendron was already facing a mandatory life sentence without parole if convicted on state charges in the May 14 rampage. The attack at Tops Friendly Market left three survivors — one Black, two white. Ballistics evidence indicated that Gendron fired approximately 60 shots .
Gendron’s radical, racist worldview and extensive preparation for the attack were laid out in documents he apparently wrote and posted online before he started shooting. FBI agents executing a search warrant at Gendron’s home the day after the shooting found a note in which he apologized to his family for the shooting and said he “had to commit this attack” because he cares “for the future of the White race.” An affidavit filed with the indictment includes detailed accounts of Gendron’s plot to attack the store, which he documented in detail in an online diary, and the attack itself, which he live streamed on social media. Gendron embraced a baseless conspiracy theory about a plot to diminish white Americans’ power and “replace” them with people of color, through immigration and other means.