The Justice Department has charged the suspect with 26 counts of hate crimes and weapons violations, and could seek the death penalty for some charges.
A month after a massacre at a Buffalo supermarket left 10 Black residents dead, federal prosecutors charged the accused gunman with 26 counts of hate crimes and weapons violations on Wednesday.
Some of the federal charges could carry the death penalty if the Justice Department decided to seek it, though there is currently a moratorium on federal executions.
The criminal complaint — which contained new details about the suspect’s racist hatred and his commitment to planning an attack that would kill as many Black people as possible — came as Attorney General Merrick Garland traveled to Buffalo on Wednesday to visit the site of the massacre.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Garland did not rule out seeking the death penalty in the case. “The Justice Department has a series of procedures it follows,” he said, adding: “The families and the survivors would be consulted.”
The suspect, Payton Gendron, 18, is an avowed white supremacist who wore camouflage and body armor and carried a semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle while livestreaming the attack online. In the days before the attack, he also posted a lengthy rant outlining his belief in so-called replacement theory, a white supremacist ideology that posits a scheme to “replace” white people with people of color.
All told, 13 people were shot at Tops Friendly Market on the afternoon of May 14; three survived.
After visiting with victims’ families early Wednesday, Mr. Garland said in the news conference that “hate brings immediate devastation, and it inflicts lasting fear.”
After outlining the charges against the suspect, Mr. Garland suggested that the suspect believed in “the vile theory that only people like him belong in this country,” and noted the extent of violence unleashed, including some 60 shots fired inside the supermarket.
“No one in this country should have to live in fear that they will go to work or shop at the grocery store and will be attacked by someone who hates them because of the color of their skin,” Mr. Garland said. “No one in this country should have to bury a loved one because of such hate.”
In an affidavit accompanying the charges filed on Wednesday, an F.B.I. agent, Christopher J. Dlugokinski, said that the suspect’s motive was “to prevent Black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race, and to inspire others to commit similar attacks.”
In the news conference, Mr. Garland also said that the accused gunman apologized to a white employee that he had shot, before continuing to shoot others inside Tops.
Authorities have previously said that the suspect had carefully planned his massacre, traveling more than 200 miles from his home in Conklin, N.Y., after choosing the East Side neighborhood in Buffalo because of its large number of Black residents, an accusation echoed by Mr. Garland on Wednesday.
The suspect is also said to have written a series of private posts about his plans on Discord, a messaging platform, that he made public shortly before the attack and that were rife with racist ramblings.
In the hours after the attack, prosecutors had decided that federal charges were warranted, but they waited to file them until after local prosecutors had announced their indictment, according to officials involved in the probe.
The F.B.I. is still investigating the case, including whether any other white supremacists — including participants in online chats — knew of Mr. Gendron’s plans or played a role in inciting him, officials said.
Investigators have previously said that the accused gunman visited the Tops market before the attack to do reconnaissance, but the federal complaint contained new details, noting a March 8 visit in which he “created two sketches of the interior layout” of the supermarket and counted the number of Black people inside and outside the store, including cashiers and two Black security guards. A day before the attack, he returned and loitered both inside and outside the store.
Finally, on the day of the attack, federal prosecutors say he visited just hours before the shooting began and “observed a ‘healthy amount of old and young’ Black people in the store.”
The federal complaint offered other insights into the suspect’s state of mind and preparations, such as a note he left in his bedroom on the morning of the shooting, in which he wrote that he “had to commit this attack” because he cares “for the future of the White race.”
The federal charges include 10 counts each of hate crimes and use of firearms to commit murder, one for each of the people killed in the attack. In addition, authorities charged the suspect with three counts of hate crime and three counts of gun charges associated with the three people who were injured but not killed in the rampage.
The hate crime charges carry the possibility of the death penalty, which would be determined by Mr. Garland after reviewing deliberations by a panel of Justice Department officials.
Mr. Garland, since taking office last year, has not authorized any local U.S. attorney to pursue the death penalty against a defendant convicted in an eligible case, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
Mr. Garland’s visit came two weeks after the suspect’s indictment on 25 counts of murder and other state charges, including domestic terrorism motivated by hate — believed to be the first time that the 2020 law has been leveled against a defendant.
Mr. Gendron has pleaded not guilty to those charges and is being held without bail.
The attack at Tops, and an even more deadly massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, has already impacted both policy and politics nationally and in New York. The State Legislature passed a series of new laws to tighten restrictions on gun ownership, including raising the minimum age to buy a semiautomatic rifle to 21. And Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, issued a pair of executive orders, one of which is aimed at enhancing the monitoring of online extremism by the State Police.
The mass shooting in Buffalo also led Representative Chris Jacobs, a Republican who represents some of the city’s suburbs, to embrace a series of gun control measures, prompting a furious blowback from members of his own party. As a response, Mr. Jacobs said he would not run for a new term in November, but decried many Republicans’ unblinking opposition to any gun control.
On Sunday, Senate leaders in Washington said that they had reached a framework for a bipartisan deal on a series of modest reforms, including enhanced background checks for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21 and funding for so-called red-flag laws that allow authorities to confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.
In their comments on Wednesday, the Justice Department officials took pains to emphasize that their actions in Buffalo were not focused on a single act of racial violence, but part of a larger effort to combat white supremacy.
“This process may not be as fast as some would hope, but it will be thorough, it will be fair, it will be comprehensive,” said Trini E. Ross, the United States Attorney for the Western District of New York. “And it will reflect what is the best about our community, and about democracy.”
Reporting was contributed by Dan Higgins from Buffalo and Benjamin Weiser.
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