10 things about Conklin, New York’s Payton Gendron

Payton S. Gendron is an American man from Conklin, Broome County, New York, United States. The town is around 209 miles away from Buffalo, Erie County, New York.

BIOGRAPHY

Gendron aspired to be an engineer. Here are 10 more things about him:

1. His parents Paul Gendron and Pamela Gendron were civil engineers with the New York State Department of Transportation.
2. He attended Susquehanna Valley Central High School in Conklin.
3. He went to the State University of New York (SUNY) Broome Community College in Broome County.
4. He repeatedly visited websites espousing white supremacist ideologies and race-based conspiracy theories.
5. He extensively researched Anders Behring Breivik, the man who killed dozens of people at a summer camp in Norway on July 22, 2011.
6. He extensively researched the mosque shootings perpetrated by Brenton Harrison Tarrant in Christchurch, New Zealand on March 15, 2019.
7. From 2021 to 2022, he was an employee at the Conklin Reliable Market in Conklin.
8. On May 14, 2022, he killed 10 people and wounded three others in Buffalo.
9. In 2023, he was sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences.
10. On June 20, 2024, he turned 21.

TIMELINE

2021

• On June 8, 2021, the New York State Police responded to Susquehanna High School after he allegedly told to fellow students that he wanted to do a shooting either at a graduation ceremony or sometime after. The state police brought him in for a mental health evaluation.
• On June 9, 2021, he was released.
• In November 2021, he started working at the Conklin Reliable Market.

2022

• In February 2022, he left his job at the Conklin Reliable Market.
• In March 2022, he visited Tops Friendly Markets, a supermarket in Buffalo. A store security guard thought he looked suspicious and confronted him.
• On March 8, 2022, he bought a candy bar at Tops Friendly Markets.
• At around 2:30 p.m. on May 14, 2022, wearing tactical gear and armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle, he allegedly fatally shot 10 people and wounded three others at Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo and used Twitch to stream a live broadcast during the attack. He later surrendered to police officers who confronted him inside the store. Out of the 13 victims, 11 are black. Hours after the mass shooting, a 180-page manifesto purportedly written by him circulated on social media. The document outlined the Great Replacement Theory, a racist conspiracy theory claiming that minorities are replacing white people. He was arrested and arraigned before Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig D. Hannah on one count of first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and was remanded without bail. Represented by Brian Parker, he was indicted on 10 counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of second-degree murder as a hate crime, three counts of second-degree attempted murder, one count of first-degree domestic act of terrorism and one count of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
• On June 15, 2022, he was charged with 26 counts of hate crimes and firearms offenses.
• On November 28, 2022, he pleaded guilty to 15 charges, including domestic terrorism motivated by hate, murder and attempted murder.
• In December 2022, his lawyer indicated that he would be willing to plead guilty to the federal charges to avoid the death penalty

2023

• On February 15, 2023, he appeared in court before Judge Susan Eagan. He was sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences and he listened to statements of the family members of some of the people he fatally shot including Katherine Massey, Celestine Chaney and Aaron Salter.

2024

• On January 12, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would seek the death penalty. He will be back in court on February 2, 2024.

2025

• On March 31, 2025, his lawyers wrote in a court filing their request to move his federal trial from Buffalo to New York City, New York.
• In September 2025, his federal trial will start.