A white supremacist U.S. military veteran who had a known history of obsessively hating black men told police in New York that he stabbed a homeless black man to death to make a statement.
"The reason why he picked New York is 'cause it's the media capital of the world," said William Aubry, assistant chief of the New York City Police Department.
"And he wanted to make a statement."
From the New York Times:
An Army veteran with a long-simmering hatred of black men claimed responsibility on Wednesday for using a sword to fatally stab a homeless man in Manhattan this week, the police said, calling the attack random and racially motivated.
The suspect, James Harris Jackson, 28, of Baltimore, surrendered to the police shortly after midnight on Wednesday, a day after the victim, Timothy Caughman, 66, stumbled into a police station bleeding from stab wounds to his chest and back, Assistant Chief William Aubry, the commander of Manhattan South detectives, told reporters at Police Headquarters. The police arrested him on a charge of second-degree murder, but the chief said they wanted to upgrade the charge to a hate crime.
"I'm the person you're looking for," Chief Aubry said Mr. Jackson told police officers when he walked into the police substation in Times Square. He had recognized himself in an image from a security camera broadcast on the news Tuesday evening, the chief said.
From Reuters:
Jackson served as a specialist in the U.S. Army until 2012, and was deployed in Afghanistan for nearly a year beginning in December 2010, an Army spokeswoman said. He was awarded several medals for his conduct, the spokeswoman said.
This is called terrorism, has the White House commented? https://t.co/argxIEaMkf
— Mazel Tov Cocktail (@AdamSerwer) March 22, 2017