A MAN WHO HATED BLACK MEN FOUND A VICTIM WHO CARED FOR OTHERS
Senseless slaying comes at a particularly anxious moment in America as hate crimes are on the rise in the country
Since he was a boy, he has hated black men. A bitter hatred of black men that boiled in his mind and consumed him. Then last week, apparently, he decided to kill them. This was the mindset investigators say they gathered of James Harris Jackson, a morose and seemingly directionless 28-year-old white man who lived in Baltimore and had been having trouble getting rooted since leaving the Army. He had registered few obvious traces of who he was and what he stood for. Those who intersected with him found him to be a disagreeable and solitary figure who waved away contact with others.
By all accounts, Timothy Caughman, 66, was a benevolent man content with an unassuming life. He lived in a former single room occupancy residence that had been his longtime home. The son of a home healthcare aide and a pastor, he had worked in anti-poverty programmes in Queens. Religion and philosophy were constants in his conversations over unhurried meals of turkey bacon and grits at local diners. In recent years, he had caught the familiar New York infatuation with celebrities and delighted in collecting their autographs and pictures.
On St Patrick’s Day, Jackson boarded a bus in Washington and rode it to New York. There were black men everywhere, and he told investigators he contemplated going elsewhere, but settled on New York because of the flood of media there. His goal was to draw the widest possible attention to his murderous plan.
He made his statement of what hate looks like late Monday night when the authorities said he pulled out a sword and fatally stabbed Caughman. He had been scavenging for cans in Midtown Manhattan around the corner from his home.
Presumably, Jackson had little intention of getting away with it. Just after midnight Wednesday, he surrendered to the police and took responsibility for the murder. He was arraigned Thursday in Supreme Court in Manhattan and charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime. He was ordered held without bail.
The attack comes at a particularly anxious moment in America as hate crimes are on the rise in the country and especially in New York City. Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew M Cuomo forcefully condemned the killing.
At the arraignment, Joan Illuzzi, the prosecutor, said Jackson was particularly offended by black men who were with white women. She told the judge that additional charges may be filed, including murder in the first degree, “as this is an act, most likely, of terrorism”.
Dressed in a Tyvek suit, handcuffed and his legs in shackles, Jackson sneered several times as the charges were read. At one point, he gazed at the ceiling as if bored. He did not enter a plea.
Sam Talkin, Jackson’s defence lawyer, declined to comment on the specifics of the case. “We just need for the dust to settle,” he said. If the information put forth by the authorities is accurate, he added, they will have to deal with Jackson’s “obvious psychological issues”.
The investigation into Jackson is still in its early stages and much remains unknown. But pieces of his life were beginning to come together.
Thus far, investigators have not linked Jackson to any white supremacy or hate group. Their sense is that he’s a discontent, not unlike many others who carry out senseless killings.
But he was blunt about his prejudices when questioned by detectives. According to a law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity since the investigation is continuing, “He told the cops, ‘I’ve hated black men since I was a kid. I’ve had these feelings since I was a young person. I hate black men.’”
Jackson told detectives, according to the official, that his intention was to keep on killing, the first attack being a springboard. At one point during his interrogation, he said he thought about grabbing a police officer’s gun and using it to shoot others.
Investigators have not yet determined the origins of this hate. Jackson told them that he had written his beliefs down and was going to deliver his writings to The New York Times. “He said, ‘Listen, I wrote this all down, it’s in my laptop,’” the law enforcement official said.
He apparently grew up in Baltimore. In 2007, he graduated from the Friends School of Baltimore, a small and prestigious Quaker day school.
Matt Micciche, the head of school, said the campus community was “shocked and saddened by the news of this horrific attack”.
“Our school has a long history of commitment to diversity, racial equality, social justice and nonviolence,” Micciche said in a statement. “The entire Friends School community extends our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Timothy Caughman.”
In March 2009, Jackson joined the Army and served at various locations in the US, working in military intelligence. He was deployed to Afghanistan between December 2010 and November 2011. Afterward, he was stationed in Germany, before being discharged in August 2012, when his rank was specialist. During his service he received several awards.
It’s unclear what he did after leaving the Army, though he seemed lost. In spring 2015, he was nearly evicted from an apartment building in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighbourhood for falling behind on his rent, according to Marcus Dagan, who was filling in then as the building’s manager.
Speaking by phone from Omaha, Nebraska, where he now lives, Dagan said Jackson occupied a one-bedroom apartment and was at least six months in arrears.
Dagan described him as a “slob” and a “deadbeat”, who refused to let anyone inside his apartment and never engaged in the building’s social atmosphere. “He turned into the tenant from hell,” Dagan said.
He began eviction proceedings, but Jackson left before they were completed. The apartment, Dagan said, was the most disgusting thing the person hired to clean it had ever seen.
“He definitely had some issues of some kind,” Dagan said. “How do you describe it? He was off.”
Yet he said he had never heard Jackson say anything that could be construed as racist. “Never had an intimation of that,” he said. “When you shake hands with somebody you can guess the character,” he said. “In his case, you’d get like three fingers and a cold fish.”
Jackson’s most recent address was a three-story house in the Hampden neighbourhood of Baltimore, just west of Johns Hopkins University, a historic area that is filled with restaurants and shops.
No one answered the door at the home Thursday. A patrol car from the Baltimore Police Department was posted outside.
Members of Jackson’s family appeared to be together in his parents’ home. On Thursday afternoon, his family issued a brief statement through a lawyer: “Our family is shocked, horrified and heartbroken by this tragedy. We extend our prayers and condolences to the family of Timothy Caughman. We have no further comments at this time and ask that our privacy be respected.”
After Jackson got to New York last Friday, he checked into the Hotel at Times Square on West 46th Street, using an assumed name. As far as the police know, he attacked no one else during those first days. As best they can tell, he was hunting. His weapon was a sword, and he carried two smaller knives.
From surveillance cameras, investigators managed to track some of his movements, though there are gaps. In one video, he can be seen tailing a black man. When detectives questioned Jackson, they said he acknowledged zeroing in on that man but didn’t strike because there were too many people around.
Late Monday evening, he found a target on a Midtown street corner. Timothy Caughman was bent over some garbage.
Like many New Yorkers living spare lives in their retirement years, Caughman was once someone else, his identity not defined by empty pockets and a modest address.
He was born in Jamaica, Queens, and grew up in a comfortable apartment in the South Jamaica Houses. One of his cousins said the family has roots in Georgia dating to the 1700s when their ancestors were first brought to America as slaves.
He was the son of Tula Caughman, a home healthcare aide for wealthy residents of nearby Jamaica Estates, and Russell Henry Caughman, the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church.
Growing up, he was called Hard Rock, for he knew his way around a boxing ring — and a street fight. “He was known in the community as not to be someone who started a fight, but if you started it, he finished it,” said one of his cousins.
According to Seth Peek, another cousin, Caughman earned an associate degree at Brooklyn College and went on to further schooling in Staten Island.
For several years in Queens, Caughman ran a division of the Neighborhood Youth Corps, a federal anti-poverty programme designed to provide part-time jobs to poor youths.
He also freely contributed homespun advice on how to excel: “‘If you know that someone is going to be somewhere, and you want to meet them, you got to be there an hour early,’” the cousin recalled Caughman instructing him.
Later, he held a succession of jobs, including as a concert promoter. He was particularly proud of booking an early gig by Earth Wind & Fire, before they attained fame, his cousin said.
For the last 20 years, he lived in a room at the Barbour Hotel on West 36th Street that now houses formerly homeless people transitioning to permanent housing.
Svein Jorgensen, the chief executive of Praxis Housing Initiatives, which manages the Barbour, said that of the 100-odd residents, Caughman was one of the few who were actually permanent tenants and not part of the transient programme.
“He was an extremely gracious individual and respectful of his neighbours,” Jorgensen said.
He read avidly, and mainly kept to himself. He was a recycler of redeemables, his currency for his modest wants. His relatives said he viewed this as an entrepreneurial undertaking, a way to keep active and help pay for his room.
He did maintain a social media presence. He had a Twitter account, and in his profile he defined himself as a can and bottle recycler, autograph collector and a good businessman.
On his Twitter feed, sandwiched between posts about celebrity culture, are links to articles about preventing cholesterol in babies and others about autism, echoing his broad interests.
Late Monday evening, as Caughman rooted through trash on Ninth Avenue, near his home, a white man in a dark coat approached him from behind. He said nothing. The man withdrew a sword from beneath his coat.
A woman heard commotion, but didn’t realise what was actually happening and she ran off. But she told detectives she heard Caughman say, “Why are you doing this? What are you doing?”