On Wednesday, a man was escorted out of the Erie County Courthouse in New York by police after rushing toward Payton Gendron, Buffalo, NY. supermarket mass shooter during his sentence hearing. Gendron was convicted of killing ten people in May of 2022.

Payton Gendron

Barbara Massey, whose sister Katherine Massey was one of Gendron’s victims, shared an emotional statement about her sister directed at the killer when a man standing behind Massey ran towards Gendron, causing temporary chaos in the courtroom and police intervention.
“I want personally to choke you,” Massey said at one point during her courtroom statement.
“My sister Katherine Massey was a great person. Kat didn’t hurt anybody,” she continued, “You are going to come to our city and decide you don’t like black people. Man, you don’t know a damn thing about Black people. We’re human.”

Gendron is then seen being rushed out of the courtroom as police restrain the individual who ran toward him during Massey’s emotional speech. He pled guilty to murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate charges in November. The terrorism charge means Gendron will be automatically sentenced to life behind bars. The shooting took place at Tops Friendly Markets in May of 2022. The 19-year-old killed 10 Black people during the mass shooting, which was motivated by racist content Gendron had apparently come across.
A Twitter user posted courtroom footage showing the incident ” BREAKING: Someone in the courtroom lunged at #Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron during sentencing. He’s been rushed out of the courtroom.”

 

When Gendron was brought back into the courtroom, presiding Judge Susan Egan addressed the outburst, acknowledging the pain and emotion surrounding the victim’s friend and family. She said,

“I am sure that you are all disturbed by the physicality that we’ve seen in the courtroom here today. And then I understand that emotion, and I understand the anger, but we cannot have that in the courtroom. And I am prepared to give anyone that needs to speak an opportunity to speak. And I know that you need to address some of your comments to the defendant. But we must conduct ourselves appropriately because we are all better than that.”

 

 

 

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