In a chilling case underscoring the threat of domestic terrorism, a 23-year-old former Marine from Trenton, New Jersey, has been charged with making violent threats against White Americans. The case highlights the ongoing problem of mass shootings in a politically charged atmosphere.
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Joshua Cobb, who had served in the Marine Corps until his recent discharge, allegedly posted a series of disturbing messages on social media, revealing plans for a mass shooting specifically targeting White people, according to the New York Times. The places in which he considered carrying out the act were gun-free zones.
A Black man from New Jersey who was until recently a U.S. Marine has been charged with threatening to kill white people — “as many as I possibly can” — in a ranting message posted online, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
The man, Joshua Cobb, acknowledged to F.B.I. agents in an interview last month that he had written the threatening message, admitted posting other ominous comments and described in detail several sites he had considered as potential targets, a criminal complaint says.
During the interview, the complaint says, Mr. Cobb also discussed his affinity for other mass shooters, including the gunman who killed 17 people at a Florida high school in 2018 and the white teenager who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022.
Mr. Cobb, 23, of Trenton, was charged with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate and foreign commerce. He was scheduled to make an initial appearance before a magistrate judge in Federal District Court in Trenton Monday afternoon, the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey said. It was not immediately clear whether he appeared in court.
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Federal prosecutors detailed the nature of Cobb’s threats, which he began making on social media in December 2022. In one threatening post, he announced his intention to “cause mayhem on the white community” and further elaborated, “I want to erase them. All of them really, but in this case as many as I possibly can.”
These were not idle rantings on digital platforms. Cobb, who was arrested in May 2023, had already acquired several weapons he planned to use to murder White Americans. He had also chosen locations for his planned attack, including a grocery store and gym in Robbinsville, New Jersey. “I have a location in mind already which I have frequented for the past year and I am certain nobody there is armed to be able to stop me from spraying them to the ground,” he wrote.
Cobb’s messages caught the attention of federal authorities, who traced them back to his social media accounts and IP addresses. He admitted to the FBI that he had meticulously planned his attack, saying that he had “acquired two of the four guns” he sought to use.
The former Marine identified himself as a Black man on his posts under the account “1dayUsuffer” according to an FBI affidavit according to a NBC News report.
He mentioned what he called the struggles of young men in America, and he wrote they “have so many obstacles stacked against us we cannot excel no matter how hard we try. Especially those like myself who are BLACK & come from poverty,” and that he wanted to cause bloodshed, the FBI agent said in the affidavit.
Interviewed by the FBI at the Marine base in California, Cobb admitted the accounts on social media were his and told agents he continued to have homicidal ideations, according to the FBI affidavit.
Cobb said that he sometimes fantasized about attacking a gym or a grocery store that what he called “rich-a– white people” frequented and that wealthier people “don’t know what it’s like to like be in a bad spot,” the affidavit alleges. He allegedly said, “So my thing was to like bring the pain to them.”
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In one of his many online rants, Cobb stated that he “specifically want to target white people” because “as a black male, they will NEVER understand my struggles.”
In a particularly menacing post, he wrote, “I plan to now continue accumulating the necessary equipment needed to execute. Once all equipment is in, time will then tell. You will all die,” according to the New York Post.
If Cobb is convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.