Aaron Salter Jr. was a 55-year-old Black man from Buffalo, New York, a retired Buffalo Police Department lieutenant who had taken a post-retirement job as a security guard at the Tops Friendly Markets on Jefferson Avenue. On May 14, 2022, a gunman arrived at the store wearing military-style clothing and body armor and opened fire in what authorities described as a racially motivated attack aimed at Black shoppers in the surrounding East Buffalo neighborhood.
Inside the supermarket, Salter moved toward the danger. Investigators and officials said he confronted the attacker and fired at him, but the rounds did not penetrate the gunman’s armored vest. In the seconds that followed, the gunman returned fire and struck Salter, killing him during the exchange. Law enforcement leaders later called Salter a hero, saying his decision to engage the shooter likely gave others the warning and time they needed to run and survive.
The suspect, Payton Gendron, was taken into custody at the scene that afternoon, and prosecutors moved quickly with sweeping charges. In the state case, Gendron ultimately pleaded guilty in November 2022 to charges that included murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate, and in February 2023 he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A separate federal case also moved forward, with a federal grand jury returning a multi-count indictment in July 2022 that included hate-crime charges tied to the deaths and attempts to kill additional victims. Federal prosecutors later notified the court they intended to seek the death penalty, keeping the federal prosecution active even after the state life sentence, with litigation continuing over how and where that federal case should be tried.
