White supremacist pleads guilty to killing Black man with a sword to incite a 'racial war'

A white supremacist has pleaded guilty to stabbing a black man to death so he could incite “a racial war.”

James Harris Jackson, a white Army veteran from Baltimore, on Wednesday, pleaded guilty to all six charges brought against him, including rare state charges of murder as terrorism and murder as a hate crime.

Jackson is scheduled to be sentenced on February 13 and according to the New York Times, faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jackson confessed to traveling to Manhattan, New York in 2017 and stalking various black men with the aim of killing one as a “declaration of global war on the Negro race.”

After several days, on March 20, 2017, the Baltimore native spotted Timothy Caughman, 66, rummaging through the trash for recyclables and stabbed him.

Jackson said he decided on New York Coty for his attack because that was where it would get the most media attention. Sending an email to The New York Times or CNN to explain the motive behind his “terrorist attack” was also a part of his grand sinister scheme.

After stabbing Caughman multiple times in the chest and back, Jackson fled, leaving his victim to stagger to a police station on West 35th Street, where officers called for an ambulance. Caughman died at the hospital.

A day later, Jackson turned himself in at a police station.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., described the incident as “a cruel and completely planned attack with a broader political goal.”

Vance also referred to Jackson as a “disturbed” man and added:

“I looked at this as no different than an Islamist Jihadist coming into the city and attacking a synagogue or attacking a non-Muslim for ideological or political purposes. That’s exactly what James Jackson did, except it was based on a bias of white supremacy.”

In an interview with detectives, Jackson, who was discharged from the US Army in August 2012, said he wanted to “inspire white men to kill black men, to scare black men and to provoke a race war.”

Meanwhile, Portia Clark, a longtime friend of the late Caughman, was present as Jackson pleaded guilty and said:

“The pain is still there. I’m grateful he pleaded guilty to all of the charges and they can take him back and throw the key away.”

In related news, last May, another White supremacist was found guilty of assaulting a black man during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

Jacob Scott Goodwin claimed he attacked 20-year-old Harris in self-defense, but his argument did not hold in court.