Buffalo shooter who wished ‘Jews to hell’ may receive death sentence

The US Department of Justice is seeking the death sentence against Buffalo supermarket shooter Payton Gendron, ABC News reported on Friday after seeing the court filing.

The “United States believes the circumstances in Counts 11-20 of the Indictment are such that, in the event of a conviction, a sentence of death is justified,” the documents read.

The 19-year-old white supremacist pleaded guilty to 15 charges, including domestic terrorism motivated by hate, murder, and attempted murder after conducting a racially-motivated shooting at a supermarket chain in May of 2022. He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The attack took the lives of 10 people.

The motive behind the shooting 

 Gendron wrote a 180 page manifesto, detailing his personal ideology and why he carried out the attack, the Jerusalem Post reported in 2022.

"Call me an ethno-nationalist eco-fascist national socialist if you want, I wouldn’t disagree with you," wrote the mass shooter. He describes his overarching objective using the 14 words of white supremacy, which is a slogan of white supremacy.

While Gendron’s attack targeted Black people, he explained in the manifesto that he believed Jews are the real issue troubling the United States.

"I’m advocating for is the Gentiles vs the Jews," wrote the shooter. "We outnumber them 100x, and they are not strong by themselves. But by their Jewish ways, they turn us against each other. When you realize this, you will know that the Jews are the biggest problem the Western world has ever had. They must be called out and killed, if they are lucky they will be exiled. We can not show any sympathy towards them again."

Michael Starr, Reuters contributed to this report.