BUFFALO, N.Y. — Garnell Whitfield refuses to let his mother Ruth Whitfield be forgotten. She was the oldest person gunned down on May 14, 2022, in Buffalo at the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue.
The Justice Department has decided to seek the death penalty for Payton Gendron. He was a teenager when he drove hundreds of miles to kill Black people in Buffalo. He is already serving a life sentence after pleading guilty in a state trial.
Whitfield said in an interview with 2 On Your Side's Claudine Ewing that it's a surprise it took so long.
But when asked if the death penalty is what he wanted, Whitfield said "I can't advocate for anybody's death, that goes against what I believe. He's incarcerated. Either he'll spend the rest of his life in jail, or he will be killed if sentenced. I have no control over that. That's not something that I spend any energy on.
"He's not in a position to hurt anybody else. He is incarcerated, and that will not bring my mother back, nor will it render my family safe. And so my focus is on the things that might have assisted him in his heinous crime, the things that are still free and available to others that might help to radicalize them."