Celestine “Stiney” Chaney, a 65-year-old Black woman, died on May 14, 2022, after a gunman opened fire inside the Tops Friendly Markets on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, New York. That afternoon began as a simple errand in a familiar place: she had gone to the store with a relative, expecting a quick trip for groceries and a treat for her family, the kind of routine outing that barely registers until it’s suddenly cut short.
Witnesses and family members later described how ordinary the moment felt right up until the first shots. In the chaos that followed, shoppers scattered and hid while the gunman moved through the aisles with tactical gear and a rifle, turning the store into a trap. Chaney was among ten people killed, and three others were wounded. The attack was quickly treated by authorities as racially motivated, with investigators describing it as a hate crime targeting Black customers in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Police took the suspect, Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York, into custody at the scene. Prosecutors said the shooting was planned and carried out with the intent to kill Black people, and investigators tied the violence to white-supremacist ideology. The criminal case unfolded on two tracks—state and federal—each built around the same day of horror but carrying different potential punishments.
In state court, Gendron pleaded guilty to charges that included hate-motivated domestic terrorism and murder, and he was sentenced on February 15, 2023, to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus additional consecutive time. For families, it was a moment that confirmed what they already knew—that the person who walked into that store with armor and a camera had decided, in advance, who he wanted to erase—yet the legal finality still couldn’t restore what was taken.
The federal case continued beyond the state sentencing. A federal grand jury indictment charged Gendron with hate crimes resulting in death, attempted-killing hate crime counts tied to those wounded, and firearms offenses connected to the killings. Federal prosecutors authorized seeking the death penalty, and the federal proceedings were scheduled out years later: court updates set special juror questionnaires to begin in mid-June 2026, with in-person jury selection slated to start August 17, 2026.
