Lawyers for racist Buffalo killer seek to share evidence with families of victims

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Federal attorneys for Payton Gendron, the racist teenager who fatally shot 10 black people in Buffalo, are asking a judge to give them permission to share evidence more widely with the families of those killed.

Lawyers for the families are considering lawsuits against social media companies, a gun maker and others.

Prior to the May 14 mass shooting at the Tops in East Buffalo, Gendron, then 18, had journeyed through an online underworld of racists and white supremacist ideologies. Those online sites helped him target the Tops because of its high concentration of black residents in the neighborhood, according to law enforcement and the families’ attorneys.

Buffalo attorney John Elmore, who represents three of the families, said in an interview this week that online sites have found ways to attract individuals like Gendron who already have the seeds of racist beliefs. On May 14, Gendron set out from his home in south Conklin after targeting the Tops as a target.

He filmed the mass murder, a video that continues to be shared online.

Ten people were killed and three others injured in a shooting at a Buffalo grocery store on May 14, 2022.

“With some people like Gendron, the algorithms were directed at him,” Elmore said. “It was this whole social network that radicalized him. It radicalized other mass shooters in the same way, before and after Gendron.

“It’s almost like some of the local Islamist terrorists who have been radicalized by the internet.”

Under a court order, attorneys for the victims’ families were able to review certain evidence at the Federal Public Defender’s Office, but could not copy or take notes. The order “preventing the victims’ attorneys from having a copy of the discovery (evidence) or making notes about it rendered their meaningful review of this material impossible,” the Federal Public Defender’s Office wrote in the documents. court cases filed Friday.

The proposal, which a federal magistrate judge is expected to approve, would further restrict some of the evidence available to attorneys. What would be available for copying would be information from Gendron’s cell phone and computers.

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Also available under the proposal would be social media data, including “Payton Gendrons’ computer files, text messages, emails and social media accounts, as well as its activities on various social media platforms”. .

Gendron pleaded guilty to state murder and hate crime charges and accepted a life sentence without parole. Federal prosecutors have yet to accept such a plea and are still pursuing a case that would have the death penalty as an option if convicted.

In their offer to share evidence, Gendron’s federal defense attorneys note that he also agreed to plead guilty to the murders in federal court.

“Of course, the only reason a protective order (for evidence) is required is that the government has not yet declined to pursue the death penalty in this case,” the defense attorneys wrote. “If and when he agrees to do so, Payton Gendron is prepared to plead guilty to the charges and receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole to be served consecutively to the life sentence without parole previously imposed by a court in ‘State.”

On Friday, Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. ordered federal prosecutors to respond by May 19 to the defense attorneys’ proposal. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the proposal.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Lawyers for Payton Gendron seek to help families of murder victims

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