In the U.S. state of New York, the white teenager who murdered ten people in a racially-motivated attack in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo last May has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
There were dramatic scenes in the courtroom this week, as family members of the victims confronted the gunman, who was just 18 years old when he published a racist manifesto online before using a legally purchased Bushmaster AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to systematically seek out and murder Black people at a supermarket. The killer live-streamed the attack live on social media.
Barbara Massey, sister of shooting victim Katherine Massey, told the court: “You gonna come down to our city, decide you don’t like Black people. You don’t know a damn thing about Black people. We’re humans. We like our kids to go to good schools. We love our kids. We never go to no neighborhoods and take people out.”
Massey was interrupted as a man lunged at the convicted mass murderer. He was restrained by court officers as the gunman was rushed from the courtroom. The Erie County district attorney later said the man would not be charged for the outburst.
Simone Crawley, granddaughter of shooting victim Ruth Whitfield, speaking during victim impact statements, told the court: “We all know the pure hatred and motivations behind your heinous crime, and we are here to tell you that you failed. We will continue to elevate and be everything that you are not, everything that you hate, and everything that you intended to destroy. … We are extremely aware that you are not a lone wolf, but a pawn of a larger organized network of domestic terrorists. And to that network, we say> ‘We as a people are unbreakable.’”
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 72 mass shootings since the start of 2023 — an average of more than one per day.
