Former Towson Man Sentenced In White Supremacy Case

NEW YORK, NY — A Towson man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing a man on the streets of New York. The white supremacist admitted his slaying of a black man was intended to spur a race war, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.

James Jackson, 30, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder as an act of terrorism, murder as a hate crime and weapons possession.

He stabbed Timothy Caughman, 66, with a replica Roman sword the evening of March 20, 2017, in Midtown Manhattan, prosecutors said.

Caughman survived the initial stabbing, and was able to walk less than a block into the Midtown South Precinct station house while suffering from wounds to his back and chest, police said. Paramedics rushed him from the precinct to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Prosecutors said Jackson turned himself into police the next day.

During interviews with investigators, Jackson said he considered his acts a "political terrorist attack," a "call to arms" and a "declaration of global total war," according to prosecutors.

Jackson had served in the U.S. Army from 2009 to 2012, including a deployment to Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst, according to WJZ, which reported he grew up in Towson and graduated from the Friends School in 2007.

When he turned himself in, Jackson told police that the murder was "practice," since he was planning to kill more black victims. He confessed to police that he had stalked other black men days before killing Caughman, according to the criminal complaint against him.

Jackson's family lives in Towson, and he most recently lived in a Hampden rowhouse, The Baltimore Sun reported. After the 2017 slaying, Jackson's relatives said in a statement to the newspaper that they were "shocked, horrified and heartbroken by this tragedy." While his attorneys advised him not to plead guilty, he reportedly did so to spare the families the pain of going through trial.

Jackson was the first person to plead guilty in New York state to the charge of murder as a crime of terrorism, prosecutors said.

He faced a maximum sentence of life in prison, and that is just what he got.

• Former Towson Man Will Be Tried As Terrorist
• Former Towson Man Pleads Guilty To Murder, Domestic Terrorism

"White nationalism will not be normalized in New York," the Manhattan district attorney said a statement after Jackson entered his guilty plea in January. "If you come here to kill New Yorkers in the name of white nationalism, you will be investigated, prosecuted and incapacitated like the terrorist that you are. You will spend your life in prison without possibility of parole because there is no place in our city or our society for terrorists — 'domestic' or otherwise."

The Manhattan district attorney added following sentencing that Jackson's guilty plea did not reduce his sentence, "in no way mitigates the horror of his actions," and did not change "the reality that James Jackson is a white supremacist and terrorist."

— By Brendan Krisel and Elizabeth Janney

Photo by Seth Wenig/Associated Press