A man rushed at convicted Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron in court on Wednesday, shouting “You don’t know what we’re going through,” as law enforcement removed him from the hearing.
The disturbance occurred during the victim impact statement of Barbara Massey, a sister of one of the ten people killed in the shooting in Buffalo last year. “My sister Katherine Massey was a great person. Kat didn’t hurt anybody,” Massey told a packed Eric County Courthouse in New York.
“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,” she said. “We like our kids to go to good schools. We love our kids.”
While Massey was speaking, an unidentified man in a grey track suit standing behind her pushed her out of his and rushed toward Gendron and his legal team. Law enforcement officers intervened, removing both Gendron and the man who rushed at him from the courtroom.
“You don’t know what we’re going through,” the unidentified man said as he was escorted out.
#BREAKING: A man charged at the Buffalo mass shooter during his sentencing and was stopped by officers and ushered out of the courtroom. The incident happened while Barbara Massey, the sister of shooting victim Kat Massey, was speaking. Live coverage: https://t.co/QlrGwOsS1c pic.twitter.com/kAkZUaBr6o
— News 4 Buffalo (@news4buffalo) February 15, 2023
Last May, Gendron targeted a Tops grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo and killed ten shoppers. Gendron pleaded guilty in November to one count of a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, three counts of attempted murder, and ten counts of first-degree murder.
“I did a terrible thing that day. I shot and killed people because they were Black. Looking back now, I can’t believe I actually did it,” Gendron told the court. “I believed what I read online and acted out of hate. I know I can’t take it back, but I wish I could, and I don’t want anyone to be inspired by me and what I did.”
Gendron was sentenced to life without the chance of parole by Judge Susan Eagan.
“You will never see the light of day as a free man again,” Judge Eagan said. According to the New York Times, Egan’s closing remarks denounced institutional racism and white supremacy as an “insidious cancer on our society and nation.”