***STATEMENT*** Senator James Sanders Jr. Condemns Mass Shooting at Supermarket in Buffalo

State Senator James Sanders Jr. said: “I feel deeply disturbed, angered and appalled by the racially motivated mass shooting that took place today at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York which injured 13 people, 10 fatally. Out of the 13 victims, 11 are Black while two are White, according to news reports. We have lost lives today, innocent people, with families, some may have children, and for what? The suspect, identified as Payton Gendron, 18, even livestreamed his crimes to the online site Twitch. This proves that hatred is alive in America in 2022 and that there is pride in that hatred and that it lives in the hearts of at least this man, not even a man, a teenager. My heart goes out to the families of the victims, I pray for them. I pray for our nation. In my district, I will, as I have in the past, immediately escalate my trainings on how people can protect themselves from these first-person shooter attacks that have plagued our nation. Although this is probably a lone wolf incident, this is not the first mass shooting we have seen and sadly it will not be the last. The killer’s message of hate is one that is fostered and propelled forward by the right wing media, with their gloved racism creating methodologies like the replacement theory which legitimizes bigotry with the goal of starting a race war. These messages dement impressionable minds, and this incident in Buffalo is just one such tragic result. Gendron has been arraigned on murder in the first degree, which carries a sentence of life without parole, and while that is the harshest sentence and justice must be served it does not bring back the innocent people who were slaughtered while buying groceries.”