MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A white man who came to New York City to kill black men and inspire a race war pleaded guilty to murder and domestic terrorism, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announced Wednesday.
James Jackson, 30, could face life in prison for charges of murder as an act of terrorism, murder as a hate crime and weapons possession, prosecutors announced. The Baltimore man is expected to be sentenced in February.
Jackson stabbed 66-year-old Timothy Caughman with a replica Roman sword the evening of March 20, 2017, on Ninth Avenue near West 36th Street, prosecutors said. The killer later told police that he traveled to New York City because its status as a global media capital in order to ignite a race war and inspire white men to kill black people.
Caughman survived the initial stabbing, and was able to walk into the Midtown South Precinct station house on West 35th Street while suffering from wounds to his back and chest, police said. Paramedics then rushed him from the precinct to Bellevue hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Jackson confessed to police that he had stalked other black men days before killing Caughman, according to the criminal complaint against him. Jackson also told police that Caughman’s murder was “practice,” and that he was planning to kill more black victims.
The U.S. Army veteran turned himself into police the day after stabbing Caughman, said prosecutors. During interviews with investigators, Jackson said he considered his acts a “political terrorist attack,” a “call to arms” and a “declaration of global total war,” according to prosecutors.
“White nationalism will not be normalized in New York,” Vance said in a statement. “If you come here to kill New Yorkers in the name of white nationalism, you will be investigated, prosecuted, and incapacitated like the terrorist that you are. You will spend your life in prison without possibility of parole because there is no place in our city or our society for terrorists – ‘domestic’ or otherwise.”
Photo by Seth Wenig/Associated Press