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| This composite screen shot shows the Twitter page of 66-year-old Timothy Caughman featuring his March 20, 2017, post and a photo he posted of himself in November 2016 after voting on election day, as seen on a computer monitor in New York on Thursday, March 23, 2017. The Twitter post was his last before being stabbed to death in New York while collecting bottles on the street. Police say James Harris Jackson, a white U.S. Army veteran from Baltimore bent on making a racist attack, took a bus to New York, randomly picked out a black man - Caughman - and killed him with a sword. Jackson turned himself in at a Times Square police station early Wednesday, about 25 hours after Caughman staggered into a police precinct bleeding to death. |
NEW YORK
(AP) -- One was a neighborly black man who lived in a rooming house
in New York's Garment District, liked to collect autographs outside
Broadway's theaters, struck up a Twitter friendship with a Hollywood
actress and took photos of himself with Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce.
The
other was a white Army veteran from outside Baltimore who was raised in
what was described as a churchgoing and liberal family and served in
Afghanistan.
Late Monday night, officials say,
their paths crossed tragically on the streets of New York in a
cold-bloodedly random act of racist violence by the white man.
As
66-year-old Timothy Caughman bent over a trash bin around the corner
from his home, gathering bottles to recycle, James Harris Jackson
attacked him from behind with a 2-foot sword and walked off, prosecutors
say. A bleeding Caughman staggered into a police station and later died
at a hospital.
On Thursday, Jackson, 28, was charged with murder as a hate crime. He said nothing in court.
"The
defendant was motivated purely by hatred," said Assistant District
Attorney Joan Illuzzi, who added that the charges could be upgraded, "as
this was an act most likely of terrorism."
Prosecutors said Jackson hated black men, especially those who dated white women.
He
came to New York last week to make a splash in the media capital of the
world by killing as many black men as possible, authorities said. He
saw Caughman on the street and thought he would make good practice for a
larger attack in Times Square, they said. But Caughman wound up the
only victim.
After seeing his picture in the
news, Jackson turned himself in at a police station. He was armed with
two knives and told officers he had tossed the sword in a trash bin in
Washington Square Park, officials said. It was later recovered.
Investigators
said they were trying to determine exactly what drove Jackson to
violence. They planned to
search his laptop and phone and interviewed
friends and family.
His attorney, Sam Talkin,
said if the allegations are anywhere close to being true, "then we're
going to address the obvious psychological issues that are present in
this case."
Jackson was in the Army from 2009
to 2012 and worked as an intelligence analyst, the Army said. Deployed
in Afghanistan in 2010-11, he earned several medals and attained the
rank of specialist.
Dr. Scott Krugman,
chairman of pediatrics at Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore
and a friend of the family, said the allegations were out of character
with his family's beliefs and the way he was raised.
Jackson's
parents, David and Patricia Jackson, are active members of Towson
Presbyterian Church and have two other sons. Patricia Jackson is a
former teacher of English-language students in the Baltimore County
school system and worked for Well for the Journey, a Christian nonprofit
organization that helps people "integrate spirituality into their daily
lives in a safe, inclusive space."
"They're
liberal as liberal can be," Krugman said. "We were at a dinner party
with them and everybody was complaining about the current administration
and very open about rights for everybody and making sure we're not
excluding immigrants, everything like that. I'm just beyond shocked
right now."
In a statement, the Jackson family
extended condolences to Caughman's family and said it was "shocked,
horrified and heartbroken by this tragedy."
Caughman
had lived for 18 years in a former hotel in Manhattan, sharing the
building with tenants who were part of a temporary-housing program.
Caughman was not part of the program; he was a tenant already living in
the century-old, seven-story building.
He was
"extremely respectful" of his neighbors and building workers, said Svein
Jorgensen, the program's executive director. "He was a great tenant and
someone that anyone would be glad to have as a neighbor." He added: "He
was a gentleman."
Caughman displayed photos
of himself with celebrities on his Twitter page, where he also showed
that he was proud to have voted in the election. He struck up a longtime
Twitter relationship with Shari Headley, the actress who played Eddie
Murphy's love interest in "Coming to America."
After
his death, she tweeted: "My heart is heavy typing this. Timothy
Caughman was a fan of mine since 1991. He only spread LOVE. His murder
was senseless."
His family was upset that he
was initially portrayed in some news reports as a homeless man with a
criminal past. He had a criminal history, but the most recent offense
was a low-level pot arrest in 2002.
His cousin
Seth Peek told The New York Times that in the 1970s and '80s, Caughman
worked with young people in Queens as part of a youth program.
"He
wasn't just a vagrant person collecting bottles," Peek said. "That was
not just what his life was. He went to college, and he was concerned
with young people in the neighborhood."
