Blaz: Sword slay is race terrorism
THE WHITE supremacist charged with using a menacing sword to kill Timothy Caughman in Manhattan deserves to be put to death, the victim’s cousin said Friday.
Murder suspect James Jackson, who traveled from Baltimore on a mission to massacre black men in Times Square, is worthy of execution, Caughman relative Seth Peek told the Daily News.
“We don’t have the death penalty in New York,” Peek said. “But if we did, yeah — he should (die). His punishment should be death or life without parole. He killed one person but it has an impact on the neighborhood and on our family . . . . A lot of people knew Timothy and he was well-respected.”
Peek was at a loss for words when asked what he might say to Jackson, 28, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan.
“That kind of spirit is such a wicked thing,” Peek said. “There’s nothing I could say to change his mind about what he’s thinking or doing.”
Jackson remained locked up without bail in the Monday night sword attack on Caughman — the son of a preacher, a bright and inquisitive student, a Motownloving role model for the local youth.
The Queens native earned a better closing act across his life than the unprovoked stabbing at W. 36th St. and Ninth Ave., Peek said.
About 300 protesters chanting “Black Lives Matter!” marched Friday night to the scene of the stabbing.
“This needs to stop,” said George Wiggins, 44, a Manhattan wine store employee. “This could have been anybody. This could have been me.”
Jackson, charged with murder as a hate crime, attacked Caughman as he sifted through garbage in search of returnable cans and bottles, told police the murder was a practice run. He intended to continue his hunt for black men in Times Square, prosecutors said.
“This is not new,” Peek told The News. “Tim was the victim of an evil-minded person, but he’s not going to be the last one and he surely wasn’t the first one. “There’s lots of these groups coming out with that type of mindset — the Aryan Nation, the Ku Klux Klan. This guy just had one of those types of mindsets.”
Caughman, 66, was a concert promoter who worked with R&B legends Earth, Wind and Fire and a lifelong lover of the Motown sound.
“Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye — that was the music of inner-city America,” said Peek. “It’s a lifestyle.”
Caughman, who spent his last 20 years living on W. 36th St. in Hell’s Kitchen, was deeply affected by the death of his mother when he was about age 30. His father had died when Caughman was still in grade school, and his brother Gene passed away about 13 years ago.
“When you lose a mother, especially like his mother, it had a heavy emotional impact on him,” Peek recalled. “It wasn’t an overnight thing. She worked feverishly, as a mother.
“She was so loving. So giving.”
Caughman and Peek were partners in their 20s, coordinating a popular citywide basketball league through the Neighborhood Youth Corps in Jamaica, Queens.
Peek recalled how his cousin forged deep ties with the kids both on and off the court. THE HATE-FILLED brute accused of using a sword to butcher a black man in Midtown carried out an act of “domestic, racist terrorism,” Mayor de Blasio said Friday.
The comments come a day after the mayor refused to answer questions about the horrific attack and suspect James Jackson’s alleged ties to hate groups.
“This is domestic, racist terrorism,” de Blasio told Brian Lehrer on WNYC radio. “There’s no question it is the equivalent of what happened in Charleston at the church, which was one of the most horrible incidents that occurred in this nation in many years — a racially motivated act of domestic terrorism.”
Jackson, 28, stalked several black people Monday night before settling on 66-year-old Timothy Caughman, prosecutors said.
Approaching his victim from behind on Ninth Ave., Jackson plunged the 18-inch blade of his sword into Caughman’s chest, prosecutors said.
The Baltimore-based racist, after surrendering to police, told cops he traveled to New York to get maximum attention for his sick plot to execute black men. Jackson was arraigned Thursday on several charges including second-degree murder as a hate crime.
De Blasio blamed the attack on a “dynamic of hatred” that grew out of the election of President Trump and has “unleashed forces of hate all over the country.”
Later Friday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams called for prosecutors to bring domestic terrorism charges against Jackson.
“We need for (white supremacist groups) to be treated the same way as we treat ISIS,” he said.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office refused to comment Friday. Prosecutors said Thursday the charges could be elevated because they believe Jackson was seeking to instill fear in the black community. The killing was “most likely an act of terrorism,” prosecutors said.
Criminal defense attorney Javier Solano, who is not connected to the case, said there may be legal roadblocks to bringing terrorism charges against Jackson.
Solano said the suspect’s decision to turn himself in would make it difficult for prosecutors to prove that he was bent on terrorizing the city.
“He could have, for example, put out some statement: ‘I will kill again, any black man that’s outside, that I see in the street,” Solano said. “You kill a guy and then you just surrender? I don’t see it.”