OPINION: New York Convicted Mass Murderer In Racially-Motivated Crime In Buffalo Has Sufficient Sentence – 11 Consecutive Life Without Parole – Death Penalty Unnecessary

Victim Family Member to Speak in Buffalo

Eleven Years Later, Racist Killer of Sharon Risher’s Mother and Two Cousins Still Not Close to an Execution Date

Editor’s note: This is about the case of Payton Gendron, who killed ten people at a market in Upstate New York.  He patterned his attack after the South Carolina mass murderer Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a church there.  The killer in Buffalo, who committed his crime at a Tops Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, had carved Roof’s name on his gun, along with names of other White Supremacist mass murderers.  The federal government is attempting to impose the death penalty on this New York case, under the argument of a hate crime, an exceptionally high bar to prove, even though New York does not support the death penalty at all.  There is no way for it to not be cruel, no matter which method is used.  It is also against the ethical considerations of every type of contractor that can be involved, be it the architectural organizations for specualized rooms, the drugs used in lethal injections (use for this purpose is strictly prohibited by the manufacturers AND by the physician ethical organizations, who have come out against the practice), and the construction of the electric chair, which is a particularly barbaric and often painfully botched practice.  It’s also against the Catholic and Greek Orthodox faiths, along with many other religions.  

Buffalo – Rev. Sharon Risher, whose mother and two cousins were among the nine black church members killed in the racially motivated mass murder in the 2015 massacre at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, will speak at 7:30pm on Wednesday, September 16 at St. Joseph University Parish, 3269 Main St in Buffalo. The event is free and open to the public. Rev. Risher is available for advance interviews.

Risher is speaking in Buffalo as trial preparations continue in the federal government’s attempt to add a federal death sentence on top of eleven life without the possibility of parole sentences already imposed by the state prosecution in the wake of the racially motivated Tops Market shooting on May 14, 2022.

Risher, who wrote a letter urging prosecutors not to seek a death sentence in the case, speaks from her own experience. Rev. Risher was working as a trauma specialist in a Dallas hospital when she was informed that her mother had been among the nine worshipers murdered in a racially motivated shooting. The killer, Dylann Roof, was convicted and sentenced to death and remains on federal death row as his appeals continue.

“If they put the 5/14 shooter on death row, they will also be putting the families of his victims and the entire Buffalo community on death row along with him,” said Risher. “It’s not just another trial full of all of the awful details of what happened to our loved ones, but every appeal brings back the pain of that day. It has been over a decade since my loved ones were killed, and there’s no end in sight. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I wish they would just throw away the key and let us remember my family for how they lived rather than how they died.”

Rev. Risher, who authored the book, For Such a Time as This – Hope and Forgiveness After the Charleston Massacre, is a leading voice in the gun violence prevention movement as well as the movement to end the death penalty. As then-chair of the board of directors of the national group, Death Penalty Action, she was the leading voice calling on President Biden to commute all federal and military death sentences before his term ended. Ultimately, Biden commuted 37 federal death sentences, leaving the killer of Risher’s loved ones and two other killers to continue their appeals on federal death row.

Risher’s visit to Buffalo is sponsored by the Western New York Coalition Against the Death Penalty in partnership with Death Penalty Action.

“The people of Buffalo, the victims and their families, deserve to know that there are alternatives to the death penalty,” said Paul McQuillen, Chairman of the Western New York Coalition Against the Death Penalty. “They deserve to know that the shooter is already serving 11 life sentences without the opportunity for parole. He will die in prison.”

“Just the fact that the federal government is calling for an execution in a state that has already rejected capital punishment is especially disturbing and unjust” said Scott Langley, a New York State resident and co-founder of Death Penalty Action, who will also be speaking at the event. “The death penalty is always a barbaric overreach of the government. Executions do nothing to help us as a society. Reverend Risher’s experience is not unique. We’ve worked with many homicide co-victims whose healing has been put on hold with the false promise that an execution decades after the murder will somehow help them.”

Banner Image: Luigi Mangione truck. Image Credit – Death Penalty Action