According to a criminal complaint filed on Wednesday, the white gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket in May has been charged with federal hate crimes and might face the death sentence.

Payton Gendron faced an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole if convicted on state counts for the May 14 gunshot that wounded three Black and two white survivors.

Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, was in Buffalo on Wednesday to see the relatives of the ten victims. During his visit, he was anticipated to address the federal allegations.

Gendron's extremist, racist ideology and his elaborate planning for the attack at the Tops Friendly Market are detailed in documents he supposedly placed online.

The materials support a conspiracy theory of a strategy to "replace" white Americans with people of color through immigration and other ways.

The blogs describe months of surveillance, demographic analysis, and target practice for a slaughter designed to terrify non-white, non-Christian citizens into leaving the country.

Gendron traveled over 200 miles from his home in a mainly white village near the New York-Pennsylvania border to a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo. According to authorities, he murdered shoppers and employees with an AR-15-style rifle while wearing body armor and live streaming the carnage with a camera installed on his helmet.

The 18-year-old turned himself in as he exited the grocery store.

He has pled not guilty to a state domestic terrorism accusation, including domestic terrorism motivated by hatred and murder.

According to online documents ascribed to Gendron, he surveyed the supermarket in March, sketching maps and recording the number of Black individuals he observed.

FBI agents were executing a search warrant at Gendron's home the day after the shooting. They discovered a note in which he apologized to his family and stated that he "had to commit this attack" because he "cares for the future of the white race," according to an affidavit filed with the federal criminal complaint.

According to the affidavit, Gendron signed the memo and addressed it to his family.

The affidavit states that agents are visiting the Conklin, New York; the residence also discovered a receipt for a candy bar purchased from the Buffalo supermarket on March 8, the day Gendron wrote in his online diary that he scouted out the store, as well as hand-drawn sketches of the business's layout.

Ten days later, a second 18-year-old armed with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, murdering 19 children and two instructors.

Soon after, the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, signed ten public safety bills, including one that prohibits New Yorkers under the age of 21 from purchasing semiautomatic rifles and another that revises the state's "red flag" law, which permits courts to temporarily seize firearms from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others.

On June 12, the US Senate signed a framework agreement on more limited federal gun restrictions and increased efforts to improve school safety and mental health services.