The white gunman who massacred 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo supermarket pleaded guilty Monday to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges, guaranteeing he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Payton Gendron, 19, entered the plea Monday in a courthouse roughly two miles from the grocery store where he used a semiautomatic rifle and body armor to carry out a racist assault he hoped would help preserve white power in the U.S. Gendron, who was handcuffed and wore an orange jumpsuit, occasionally licked and clenched his lips as he pleaded guilty to all of the most serious charges in the grand jury indictment, including murder, murder as a hate crime and hate-motivated domestic terrorism, which carries an automatic sentence of life without parole. He answered “yes” and “guilty" as Judge Susan Eagan referred to each victim by name and asked whether he killed them because of their race. Gendron also pleaded guilty to wounding three people who survived the May attack. Many of the relatives of those victims sat and watched, some dabbing their eyes and sniffling. Speaking to reporters later, several said the plea left them cold. It didn’t address the bigger problem, which they said is racism in America. Read more: Youngest of 10 Buffalo shooting victims being laid to rest “His voice made me feel sick, but it showed me I was right,” said Zeneta Everhart, whose 20-year-old son was shot in the neck but survived. “This country has a problem. This country is inherently violent. It is racist. And his voice showed that to me.” After the roughly 45-minute proceeding ended, Gendron's lawyers suggested that he now regrets his crimes, but they didn't elaborate or take questions. “This critical step represents a condemnation of the racist ideology that fueled his horrific actions on May 14,” said Gendron’s lawyer, Brian Parker. “It is our hope that a final resolution of the state charges will help in some small way to keep the focus on the needs of the victims and the community.” Gendron's parents, in their first public statement, said the guilty plea ensures their son will be held accountable. Paul and Pamela Gendron said they “pray for healing for everyone affected." They thanked law enforcement authorities who investigated the case, adding they will “continue to provide any assistance we can." “We remain shocked and shattered to learn that our son was responsible for the hideous attack at the Tops grocery store on May 14, 2022,” said the emailed statement, which was provided to The Associated Press by their attorney. Gendron has pleaded not guilty to separate federal hate crime charges that could result in a death sentence if he is convicted. The U.S. Justice Department has not said whether it will seek capital punishment. Acknowledgement of guilt and a claim of repentance could potentially help Gendron in a penalty phase of a death penalty trial. The plea comes at a time when many Americans have become nearly desensitized to mass shootings. In recent weeks, there have been deadly attacks at a Walmart in Virginia, at a gay club in Colorado and at the University of Virginia. Read more: Buffalo shooting latest example of targeted racial violence Just days after Gendron’s rampage in Buffalo, a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas. Gendron wore body armor and used a legally purchased AR-15 style rifle in his attack on the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo. Those killed ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included an armed security guard died trying to protect customers, a church deacon and the mother of a former Buffalo fire commissioner. Gendron surrendered when police confronted him as he emerged from the store. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who was in the courtroom for Gendron’s guilty plea, told reporters afterwards that “It was important to hear why these precious lives were snatched from us for no other reason than the color of their skin.” The mayor, a Democrat, called for a ban on assault weapons, as did Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. Relatives of the victims reiterated their calls for Congress and the FBI to address white supremacy and gun violence. "We are literally begging for those in power to do something about it," said Garnell Whitfield, whose 86-year-old mother, Ruth Whitfield, was killed." White supremacy was Gendron’s motive. He said in documents posted online just before the attack that he’d picked the store, about a three hour drive from his home in Conklin, New York, because it was in a predominantly Black neighborhood. He said he was motivated by a belief in a massive conspiracy to dilute the power of white people by “replacing” them in the U.S. with people of color. “Swift justice,” is how Erie County District Attorney John Flynn described Monday’s result, noting that it’s the first time anyone in the state of New York has been convicted of the hate-motivated terrorism charge. His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 15. Attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents several of the victims’ families, said they remain baffled that the gunman survived. They want harsh punishment, he said: “We want him to be treated as the heinous, cold blooded vicious murderer that he was for killing all these innocent Black people. It is emotional and we are angry.” Mark Talley, the son of Geraldine Talley, who was killed, called on authorities to incarcerate him in Erie County, in the same community where he caused so much pain, so that he might face the same horror experienced by his victims. “I want that pain to eat at him every second of every day for the rest of his life,” Talley said. Talley and Everhart said they were offended by Gendron's tone and cleaned-up appearance in court. They said a Black defendant would have been treated differently. Gendron is a “thug,” they said. “We show them in a way that doesn’t make them threatening, and it’s disgusting,” Everhart said. “Am I happy he’s gong to jail for life?" Talley said. “What would make me happy is if America acknowledged its history of racism.”

Black people going about their daily lives — then dying in a hail of bullets fired by a white man who targeted them because of their skin color. Substitute a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, with a church in South Carolina, and Malcolm Graham knows the pain and grief the families of those killed Saturday are feeling. He knows their dismay that racial bigotry has torn apart the fabric of their families. “America’s Achilles’ heel continues to be ... racism,” said Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Graham-Hurd, was among nine parishioners fatally shot by avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof in 2015 during Bible study in Charleston. “As a country, we need to acknowledge that it exists,” Graham said. “There’s a lack of acknowledgment that these problems are persistent, are embedded into systems and cost lives.” For many Black Americans, the Buffalo shooting has stirred up the same feelings they faced after Charleston and other attacks: the fear, the vulnerability, the worry that nothing will be done politically or otherwise to prevent the next act of targeted racial violence. Law enforcement officials said suspected gunman Payton Gendron, 18, drove 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin, New York, to Buffalo after searching out and specifically targeting a predominantly Black neighborhood. Also read: 2 minors dead, 8 wounded in shooting at Pittsburgh party He shot 11 Black people and two white people at the grocery store, authorities said. Ten people died. A 180-page document, purportedly written by Gendron, gives plans for the attack and makes references to other racist shootings and to Roof. The document also outlines a racist ideology rooted in a belief that the U.S. should belong only to white people. All others, the document said, were “replacers” who should be eliminated by force or terror. The attack was intended to intimidate all non-white, non-Christian people and get them to leave the country, it said. The idea that those killed at the Tops Friendly Market lost their lives because of the shooter's racism is “sick,” said Steve Carlson, 29, who is Black and grew up knowing Katherine Massey, one of the victims. “It’s not right. You don’t pick what ethnicity you’re born to,” Carlson said. “These people were just shopping, they went to go get food for their families.” At State Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, Deacon Heyward Patterson was mourned during services Sunday. Pastor Russell Bell couldn't wrap his mind around the attack and Patterson's death. “I don’t understand what that is, to hate people just because of their color, to hate people because we’re different. God made us all different. That’s what makes the world go ’round,” he said. But as abhorrent as the shooting was, it was hardly an isolated incident. The history of the United States is filled with white supremacist violence, starting from even before its official origins. Black people have borne and continue to bear the brunt of much of it, but other groups have also been targeted in attacks because of their race, including Latinos in the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were killed. Gunmen with biases against religion and sexual orientation have also carried out targeted violence: the shootings at a San Diego synagogue in 2019 and a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016. Democratic Florida state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, who is gay and of Peruvian descent, immediately had flashbacks to the Pulse nightclub shooting that left 49 victims dead. The shooter targeted gay patrons in what was a largely Latino crowd. “It’s déjà vu all over again in Orlando," said Smith, who represents an Orlando district. “2016 seems like a long time ago, but in 2022 there’s a lot more hatred and bigotry out there.” Experiencing violence of any kind is obviously traumatic, but the impact of targeted violence like this has ripples on a broader level. Also read: Police arrest suspect in South Carolina mall shooting “To be targeted for these things that you cannot control, it’s not only extremely painful emotionally, but it also impacts the way you perceive the world going forward after that," said Michael Edison Hayden, spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates for civil rights. Hate crime laws are on the books in recognition of that reality. The effect of events like these is “you've increased the vulnerability of everyone who looks like the target," said Jeannine Bell, a professor at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law. “This is a different type of crime because it impacts not just the victims, but also the community." While there's always hand-wringing and dismay after incidents like these, that hasn't translated into a commitment to address the bigotry that underlies them, said Cornell Williams Brooks, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and former president and CEO of the NAACP. He's weary of political leaders’ promises to do more about white supremacist threats and gun violence. “Count the number of sympathy cards and flowers, prayers and thoughts that have been extended to the victims of mass shootings, to the victims of racialized violence,” he said. “Do we really need (politicians) showing up to our places of worship to help bury our folks and do nothing to stop the carnage?”