New York Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday announced a settlement between gun manufacturing company MEAN Arms and the families of the victims killed in the 2022 racist mass shooting in Buffalo.
On May 14, 2022, a white supremacist killed 10 Black people and injured three others at a Tops supermarket on the city’s East Side.
The state sued MEAN Arms for allegedly aiding the illegal possession of assault weapons in New York. The attorney general’s office argued the shooter used a magazine lock that can be easily removed, allowing the shooter, Payton Gendron, to add 30-round detachable magazines to quickly shoot people inside the grocery store.
According to James, MEAN Arms will pay the victims’ families $1.75 million, stop selling the device in New York, label each packaging to say it cannot be sold or resold in New York and notify all businesses selling the product it is illegal to sell in New York.
“No amount of money can ease their pain, but we hope that by holding this manufacturer accountable and banning it from selling this device in New York state, we can offer the people of Buffalo some measure of comfort in knowing that those responsible for such acts of hate and violence will not go unpunished in New York,” James said.
The state attorney general adds that individual plaintiffs have also reached settlements in their cases. According to the office of John Elmore, who represents victims’ families, Gendron’s parents made an undisclosed settlement to the families impacted, and the owner of Vintage Firearms, where the gun used in the shooting was sold, has relinquished his firearm sales licenses, shuttering his business.
Gendron is serving life in prison after pleading guilty to state charges that included murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate. Federal prosecutors are still seeking the death penalty.